


To Have a Home

by TheRothwoman



Series: Scenes From the New Life(s) of Bucky Barnes [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alcohol, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Bucky Barnes, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Books, Bucky Barnes's Trigger Words, Cats, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Coitus Interruptus, Comedy, Cooking, Costumes, Crafts, Dancing, Diners, Domestic Avengers, Domestic Fluff, Drunkenness, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Ice Cream, M/M, Panic Attacks, Pets, Photography, Pictures, Polyamorous Character, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Prank Wars, Roommates, Sam Wilson is So Done, Sexual Content, Sleepy Cuddles, Slow Dancing, Television Watching, Texting, doctor who - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2018-08-24 02:36:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8353570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRothwoman/pseuds/TheRothwoman
Summary: Warm. Pictures. Company. Stray. TV. Share. Loved.
Months after the events of Re-establishing Contact, a security mishap forces Steve and Bucky to be placed in different apartments at distant ends of the city. With a small but brand-new place to call his own, functional in society but still laying low and still wrestling with voices in the night, Bucky begins building a new home. This is a story about friendship, love, photography, books, movies, television, cats, prank wars, and having somewhere to go in times of need. This is a year in the life of Bucky Barnes.
New tags added with new chapters. This fic can be read as a complete story or as a series of vignettes. Each chapter's opening notes will state chapter-specific tags.





	1. Warm: The Christmas Chapter

**Author's Note:**

> Not long after I finished Re-establishing Contact, I made this post where I threw a bunch of headcanons around about Bucky and the idea of "home." Soon after, I took a series of keywords from most of the lines and used them as fic prompts. I actually didn't set out to make this story a sequel to Re-establishing Contact, especially with the conceit that Steve and Bucky are living apart (which I did purely because I wanted the idea of Bucky having a place he could call his own to be the core theme explored here) but then I realized there were a number of things about the beginning (Bucky's comfort levels, the relatively casual nature of his and Steve's reunion) that didn't really make sense unless the events of Re-establishing Contact had happened first. So! Here we are. I've put a lot of love into this one, I hope you guys enjoy it! Huge thanks again to miss-slothrop for beta-reading.
> 
> Chapter-specific tags: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Dancing, Slow Dancing, Sleepy Cuddles

**Prologue**

_Memo: T. Stark_

_Re: Supersoldier Boyfriends_

_There’s been an incident. No one’s in danger, but Rogers and Barnes need to be put at separate addresses. Again, nothing deadly serious, but bad enough that we need to split them up for a bit. Recommended geographical separation time is twelve months, with an additional two-month communication buffer at the start if they insist on staying within the city limits (which I strongly suspect they will). This probably won’t be easy news to break to them, although they’ll still be able to see each other. It’s gonna take a bit of time first, though…_

**Warm**

Bucky was used to the cold at this point. One didn’t get locked up in cryo in Siberia for years on end without developing a skin for it, so to speak, but that didn’t mean he particularly enjoyed it. However, if there was one related thing he hadn’t been exposed to in a long time that he did truly miss, it was Christmas snow.

It wouldn’t be Christmas for another week, but the season was in full swing (and had been for well over a month for some reason. Jesus, did Thanksgiving even have room to breathe in the 21st century?) and the city was being gifted with its first snowfall of the year. A modest two-to-four inches was expected, but it was sticking and was enough to coat the sidewalks and the street lamps and the mailboxes and the awnings of the shops in a charming white. At least, it probably _would_ be charming if Bucky could actually see it properly. The sun was presumably setting and snow was still coming down—in hearty globs with mercifully minimal wind—and any ordinary person would probably prefer to spend today inside, perhaps curled up with a mug of tea or cocoa. But Bucky had marked today out to run an errand, and this was an occasion he wasn’t particularly keen on putting off. Besides, he didn’t think he was allowed to count himself as “ordinary” by this point. Still, he’d finally come to terms with the reality that he was, in fact, allowed to do ordinary things and take a stab at some semblance of an ordinary life.

On this day, “ordinary” meant that Bucky Barnes was going decoration shopping, and he wasn’t about to let something as ordinary as moderately adverse weather and lessened visibility stop him.

Bucky was admittedly making a small sacrifice in this endeavor. Limited as his funds were, it was this or buying fresh food for the next few days. A fair trade-off, Bucky supposed. There was a small stockpile of canned soup and a box or two of frozen toaster waffles he could live off of, and the decorations were all things he planned to hold onto for a while so there shouldn’t be a need to repeat the shopping trip next year. There was, however, one exception, and it was something Bucky had mulled over for a while before making his purchase: the tree. It was live, so it was only going to last one season. Size had never been an issue, as Bucky only had the space in his apartment for something maybe a foot or two tall, so that decision was made for him. The question had been: real or plastic? He’d weighed the pros and cons and came out with the following list:

Real: Pros:

  * Will smell great
  * Nice to have something alive in the apartment



Cons:

  * Have to take care of it
  * Needles everywhere
  * Won’t last



Fake: Pros:

  * Can keep/easy storage
  * No water, no needles!



Cons:

  * Won’t smell like a tree
  * It’s plastic
  * _It’s not a real tree_



The modest little sapling sat in a bag in Bucky’s right arm, while his new arm carried a bag of lights, ornaments, and some additional hardware supplies. He trudged down the last few blocks before his building and climbed the two flights of stairs to his apartment. Kicking off his boots and peeling away his layers, he cranked the thermostat up a few notches before glancing around at the space to be decorated. The place was not too much larger than his apartment in Bucharest and was still sparsely furnished. A front room hosting nothing but a couch and a rug lead into a kitchenette off to the side, while going straight led to the bedroom and bathroom. Having an actual bed, a dresser, and a side-table were all well and good, but Bucky really wanted to get around to putting up some bookshelves sometime soon. And then he needed to fill them with his gradually growing book collection. The walls…the walls needed more things on them. Pictures. He should get pictures, too.

But first, the tree and the lights.

He removed the tree from the bag and inhaled deeply. There really was nothing quite like the smell of fresh pine. If the Winter Soldier had even had a sense of smell, Bucky couldn’t remember. He must have spent days in terrain full of evergreen trees, but he’d never paid them any mind beyond tactical assessment, even back during the war. Maybe that was for the best. He set the tree aside and reached into the other bag to get out a hammer, a box of nails, and the box of colored lights before going to grab a chair to hang them up. About a half-hour, a few dozen nails, some minor untangling, and a lot of hammering later, Bucky’s front room was adorned with a dim halo of red, yellow, green, and blue, just waiting to be plugged in to begin their merry twinkling. He picked up the tree and set it in a corner, applying the base, giving it some water, and threading the string of white lights through its branches. The ornaments he’d gotten were cheap and simple, but they would do. A box of glossy red and a box of matte gold wound up being plenty to cover the small tree. It was then that Bucky smacked himself in the forehead in acknowledgement of a minor oversight: he’d completely forgotten to get a star. Oh well, did it really matter that much?

Standing up and stretching his legs, Bucky went around to plug the holiday lights in and turn the ceiling light off. For a few moments, it was a bit too much, and he almost considered turning the ceiling light back on. When Bucky was out and about, the omnipresent Christmas gear almost seemed to melt into his surroundings. It was background noise. Really pretty background noise, but still something he could filter out if necessary. He hadn’t had an actual Christmas in decades. Even when he was living in Bucharest, he ignored holidays in favor of continuing to try and put himself back together. Live, stay hidden, try to remember. But now he was free. Well, free as you could be while Tony Stark did an (admittedly excellent) job of keeping the government off your back. But it was better than laying low with no friends, even if you were a bit separated, and it was certainly better than Hydra.

This cozy light show was all his. It was a unique feeling of accomplishment that he planned to expand on once he started doing more to actually furnish the place. Now, if only he had someone to share it with. Contact with Steve, Natasha, and Sam had been sparse in these past two months since the emergency split, as had been required by their overseers. Whenever Bucky did hear from them, it was always in the form of some mysterious letter with no return address. A holiday party was unfortunately out of the question, as it was too soon for them to all be gathered together in one place for an extended period of time. Oh well, maybe next year.

Bucky went to the kitchen cabinets and got out an I (Heart) NY mug and a box of hot cocoa mix. Merry elixir thusly prepared, he sat down on the couch and gazed idly at the tree. No presents, and he didn’t realistically expect any. That was fine, maybe he’d treat himself to a copy of that _Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_ book that Wilson recommended. Still, the tree was his emblem of Christmas: getting by in a tough world, hopefully with a bit of love and care. He hoped he’d get to see Steve and the others again soon. It was warm here, but lonely. And he was beginning to grow tired of being alone. He went to go grab the 1980s sci-fi anthology on his bedside table, pushed the couch closer to the tree, and curled up in a tacky but eminently comfortable plaid throw-rug to read by treelight. A few hours later, he was asleep, blanketed by the soft rainbow glow from the ceiling and the white glow of the tree. Bucky was not plagued by nightmares that night.

* * *

 

Bucky woke up late on Christmas morning and peeked outside to check on the snow. Nothing new from last week, just gray skies and cold. Slippers and plum-colored pajamas were nice on a day like this, and Bucky didn’t see any pressing reason to wear anything else for the better part of today. He exited the bedroom to go and make himself some coffee and a couple of those toaster waffles, when he happened to glance in the corner and immediately had a few questions. Namely, _where did those gift-wrapped boxes come from?_ And _wait, where’s the tree?_ The answer to the latter was a simple _oh, it’s behind the boxes_ , and the former became apparent when he saw yet another mystery note on the kitchen island. He opened it and read:

Bucky,

The visitation restriction is over! I’ll see you soon! Wouldn’t want to leave my best guy alone on Christmas, now would I? Bringing treats.

Love,

Steve

\------------

Barnes,

About time we got you plugged in. Consider it an extensive housewarming gift for your new life. All instructions included. Don’t worry about the extra utility bills, we’ve got that covered. You just have fun with your new toys. We’ll be in touch. Welcome to the network.

-NR (“Santa” and elves)

\------------

Welcome to the 21st century, nerd.

-Sam

Bucky was touched. Beyond touched. He felt a warmth spread across his chest and his hand flew to his chin. He had to blink his eyes back into focus before turning his attention to the sudden yuletide windfall sitting in his corner and eagerly tearing in. “Plugged in” was right, as five minutes and a pile of wrapping paper later, Bucky found himself the proud owner of a smartphone, a laptop computer, a small flatscreen TV and, to his surprise, a record player complete with a note from Sam that said “you’re in luck, these are making a comeback for some reason”. Atop the tree sat a red, white, and blue star, because of course Steve had found that somewhere. Bucky made himself a quick breakfast before setting to work getting set up. With no table to mount it on yet, the TV went on the floor facing the couch. The laptop presented endless possibilities, so Bucky decided to hold off on it until he had a long uninterrupted stretch of time. Turning on the phone revealed that it had already been loaded with Steve, Natasha, and Sam’s numbers. He shot Sam and Natasha a couple of thank-you texts ([Santa-Nat, you know I don’t have a chimney, right?]/[Wilson, I sense my neighbors may have a special place in hell for me once I actually get vinyls for this thing.]) before placing a proper phone call to Steve.

“Bucky!”

“Steve, my god, you have no idea how great it is to hear your voice again after all these weeks.”

“Same to you,” Steve talked with a bit of extra breath in his voice, as though he were walking fast.

“Are you outside? When are you coming over?” Bucky asked.

“The answer to both of those questions is ‘yes’.”

“Steve, ‘yes’ is not an answer to a ‘when’ questi…” Bucky was interrupted by a knock at the door. “Hang on a sec.” He peaked through the lens in the door and promptly opened it. There stood Steve, phone in one hand, bag in the other, and…wait, was that seriously a Santa hat on his head? He and Bucky put their phones down simultaneously as Steve also put the bag down and opened his arms to lean in for a hug. “Ah, wait,” Bucky interjected, raising a finger. “First thing’s first, take the hat off. Looks like you’re trying too hard.” Steve cocked an eyebrow and curled a side of his lip up in response, before removing the hat and placing it on Bucky’s head. “…Touché,” muttered the newly-adorned Santa Soldier before collapsing into a grin and reaching out to his partner. “C’mere, punk.” Bucky and Steve kissed and embraced and didn’t let go for the better part of a minute. Steve was still aglow with residual cold, which didn’t particularly bother the still-pajama-clad Barnes. “I haven’t seen you in two months.”

“I’m so sorry, Buck,” said Steve, holding him closer. “But I’m here now and we’re all much closer. We won’t have to stay in touch just by mystery notes anymore.”

“I dunno,” said Bucky, giving a small shrug. “Those were kinda fun to get.”

“And speaking of fun,” said Steve, breaking the hug and leaning over to pick up the bag. “Told you I was bringing treats.” He stepped inside while Bucky closed the door behind him.

“Excellent,” said Bucky, rubbing his hands together before taking off the hat. “What’cha got, Rogers?” Steve began pulling items out of the bag.

“Peppermint chocolate, a bottle of brandy, and…” he pulled out a sizeable colorful plastic bucket, “…a larger quantity of caramel corn than we should reasonably be consuming but hey, it’s Christmas. Also…” he removed the final item from the bag, “…I suspect this’ll be the first in a collection. Don’t eat it.” Bucky accepted the record and jokingly motioned to chomp on it before taking a look at the sleeve. Jazz. He nodded approvingly.

“Looks like a fine start,” he said. “Maybe we can listen to it later? Take the new record player for a spin?” His smile faltered as he froze, then gave himself a quick smack on the forehead. “…Goddammit…no pun intended.”

“Sure you didn’t,” Steve quipped before taking a seat on the couch and looking around. “Still settling in?” Bucky suddenly become very self-conscious about the apartment and how Spartan it was. The couch and the electronics were certainly a start, but the possibility of actually having people over still threw him for a loop.

“I guess?” Bucky replied. “I dunno, it’s kinda hard to fill your place with stuff when you don’t actually have stuff.” He sighed. “God, I’m sorry, I feel like a bad host. If I’d known I was gonna have company, I might’ve taken a stab at making something resembling Christmas dinner.”

“We could just order something,” said Steve with a half-shrug. “I’ll pay.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to send any delivery kids out on Christmas,” said Bucky.

“Fair point,” said Steve. “What’ve you got here? We could still make something.”

Bucky pursed his lips. “Nnnnnot much, let me check.” He tossed the Santa hat onto the couch before striding over to the fridge. “Okay, we’ve got…bread, eggs, half a cabbage…oh, wait, ew, we have zero of a cabbage…carrots, mackintosh apples, vanilla yogurt…” he opened up the freezer, “…toaster waffles, and a bunch of chicken drumsticks.” He looked over at Steve before reaching into the freezer and pulling out the meat. “Drumsticks it is. With barbeque sauce.”

They let the drumsticks sit out and start to defrost for a few hours while they set up Bucky’s new laptop. As the sun set and evening approached, the two set to work in the kitchenette: Steve washing the carrots and Bucky throwing the chicken into a frying pan. Within the hour, they had finished their modest meal and moved on to the sweets and brandy, which they munched over several hours of holiday specials courtesy of Natasha’s borrowed Netflix account. Sugar thusly consumed, Bucky retrieved the jazz album and set it into the record player. Right away, the pair was greeted with a lively number featuring fast piano and an enthusiastic saxophone. Bucky turned around and extended his right hand. 

“Pardon me, Captain Rogers, but may I have this dance?”

“I thought you’d never ask.” Steve took Bucky’s hand and the two began to dance up a storm. There wasn’t any particular rhyme or reason to their movements, just rolling along with wherever the music and their bodies took them. As the album reached its final tracks, the numbers became slower and Bucky and Steve came together in an easy waltz. By the end, they were just standing there, swaying gently in each other’s arms under the colorful glow of the Christmas lights as the last notes of the closing slow jam petered out and all that was left was the sound of the record crackling softly in the night. Bucky had leaned his head on Steve’s shoulder and closed his eyes. He felt he could easily be lulled to sleep by the gentle rocking motion and the sound of Steve’s breathing, but that would probably be a bit of an inconvenience.

“Hey Steve?” he murmured.

“Hmm?”

“Can you stay here tonight?”

“’Course I can, Buck.” 

They stayed that way for another few minutes before Bucky went to turn off the record player and led Steve to his bedroom. They undressed and climbed into bed together, Steve enveloping Bucky completely in his arms and holding him tight.

“Hey, don’t worry,” Bucky muttered calmly, just above a whisper, wrapping his own arms around Steve’s impressive frame as best he could. “This is my place, I’m not going anywhere.”

“I know, I just…” Steve replied with a catch in his voice, “God, Buck, I’ve missed you so much…”

“I missed you, too,” said Bucky, giving Steve a loving squeeze. “You…thank you…thank you for coming back for me. Always…thank you for _always_ coming back for me.” Steve planted a firm kiss to the top of Bucky’s head, who reciprocated with a kiss on Steve’s cheekbone as the two settled down in a warm bundle while icy breezes blew outside. Bucky silently hoped that Steve didn’t start crying because god knows that would get _him_ started, and both of them weeping openly on each other at Christmas frankly felt a tad excessive. Maybe later, though. They’d both earned it.

It wasn’t until after New Year’s that Steve went back to his own apartment, leaving Bucky to ponder the next twelve months of possibility.


	2. Pictures: The Possessions Chapter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short bit with walking and musing about Bucky Having Things.
> 
> Chapter-specific tags: Pictures, Photography, Books, Crafts

**Pictures**

There was a charm to hunting around stores in person. Bucky had spent many days browsing thrift shops, including one notably epic visit to Strand that had taken up the better part of an entire afternoon, looking for books. In one sense, this method was sufficiently inexpensive. In another sense, Bucky took a very particular pleasure in picking up secondhand books. Every book came with an extra, untold story: who had it belonged to? Did they read it? Did they like it? How long was it on their shelf? How did they get it? Was it a gift from someone? Occasionally Bucky would run across a book that had an inscription on the inside, and those he always bought. Those were books that were specially intended to have a good home, to be read and loved. You couldn’t tell that from just ordering online.

But in this case, just ordering online was exactly what he was doing just because it was that much easier to find what he was looking for. Bucky had decided to buy himself a Polaroid camera. When it arrived, he sent a picture of it to the others with the text: [These look pretty neat. Gonna take it around to stuff all year and have an album compiled by New Year’s.]

Steve: [Looking forward to seeing what all you get!]

Natasha: [Sounds like fun. You’ve chosen your hobby well.]

Sam: [okay but]

Sam: [you do know you can just take pictures with your phone right]

Sam: [You wanna make an album out of digital photos you can do all kinds of stuff with that]

Sam: [You can keep em, make copies, play around with Photoshop or whatever]

Sam: [And you can make prints if you want to hang them on your wall or something]

Sam: [Besides if you carry an actual camera around, you’re either gonna look like a tourist or The Biggest Hipster]

Sam: [and a phone’s just smaller]

Bucky: [oh my god wilson]

Bucky: [it’s just a personal project why am I not allowed to just have fun with it]

Sam: [Oh wait, sorry. Far be it from me to be The Fun Police.]

Bucky: [I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not.]

Sam: [Welcome to texting.]

Bucky: [Thanks, glad to be here.]

Sam: [Incidentally, you seem to’ve gotten the hang of 2010s web grammar pretty well for an old person.]

Bucky: [yes it’s called]

Bucky: [using the internet]

That Saturday, Bucky ventured out into the aftermath of a hearty January snow to take some shots of Central Park. He started from 110th Street and worked his way down a long winding route the entire length of the park, taking shots in the snowy branches of the Ramble, the skyline across from the reservoir, the small but still majestic stonework of Belvedere Castle, the Imagine circle at Strawberry Fields (“note to self: get around to listening to the Beatles”), and the Balto statue. He didn’t sit down until hours later when he reached Columbus Circle and opted to treat himself to a nice hot sandwich. As he ate his chicken parmesan and gazed out the window at the passing crowds, the masses of dark coats and boots and wool and fleece hats, he started to wonder about possessions. In all likelihood, most of the people he was watching had homes full of their own stuff that they’d accumulated throughout their lives. Clothes, books, decorations, trophies, gifts from friends, memorabilia of all kinds. Bucky had none of that, not even from Bucharest. He was working completely from scratch. The electronics from Christmas were certainly a start, as were the books he was collecting, but nothing remained of his days before the train and the ice and the snow. Before the Winter Soldier. Well, technically things _did_ remain, but they were all in museums. He could just hear the others making their own variations on “don’t cling to the past, you’re here to start a new life, move on,” etc., but…seriously, having _something_ from back then would be nice. Bucky had half a mind to check out some antique stores, but something in him balked at the notion of materials he’d grown up with being considered “antiques.” Then his eyes fell on something colorful through the dark-clad crowds: free newspaper bins. Something clicked. Bucky took out his phone and did a search for “vintage newspapers.”

A few weeks later, Bucky had amassed a small pile of old 1940s newspapers and acquired a multi-panel collage frame. Another week of canned soup and toaster waffles, but hey, small sacrifices and all that. Scissors in hand, he clipped through appropriate headlines and spent the afternoon assembling a timeline of the war and of the Howling Commandos. He mounted it on the wall next to the front door and stood back to admire his handiwork. Then he looked around at the other walls, still barren, still in need of adornment of some kind. He thought back to what Sam had said about the versatility of digital images. Bucky had been spending a lot of time getting to know the Internet, a vast trove of every kind of image under the sun, and he started to wonder if it would be at all tacky to just find some fun pictures online, get prints of them, and put those up.

…Actually, would it be tacky to have a big image of your boyfriend on your wall when he also happened to be something of a national icon? A brief jaunt through the web turned out approximately half a gazillion interesting pictures of Steve Rogers, some of them were old wartime posters, some were political cartoons, some were actual photos of him from the war and the Battle of New York, some were fanart. Decisions, decisions. Bucky wound up saving a bunch of images to his laptop for posterity, but he wasn’t sure which one exactly would be truly worthy of a place on his wall. Sure he could take more than one, but he wasn’t sure if Steve would be weirded out by seeing his own face plastered everywhere every time he came to Bucky’s apartment.

Then he saw it. An excellent, beautiful corruption of an old classic image, at once sincere and mocking but nonetheless true, altered in language but still wholly representative of something Steve stood for. It was vulgar. It was just a tad wrong. It was perfect. Bucky set to work determining how he could get a print of it.

* * *

 

Bucky: [I’ve been redecorating at last, there’s some stuff here I think you’d like to see.]

Steve: [Sounds good. I’ll come over tomorrow at 11 and we can grab lunch?]

Bucky: [Great, I’ll see you then]

Steve came over the next day and Bucky showed off his war collage, the Central Park photos, and his growing stacks of books (“No bookcase yet?” “Working on that.”). Then he took Steve to the bedroom to present “the pièce de résistance,” letting his face twist into his most shameless smirk. Steve gawked a little at the poster hanging over the bed, put a finger to his chin, and stifled a snicker before putting his entire face in his hand.

“Bucky…where did you find this?”

“Internet.”

“Why does it exist?”

“Why _not?_ ”

“Did you pay actual money for this?”

“Well, I certainly didn’t pay fake money for it.”

“Am I gonna have to look at this every time we have sex in here?”

“Not if the lights are off.”

“I don’t know if this is brilliant or dumb.”

“Steve, it’s a work of modern art. It’s a commentary on the subjective nature of iconography and the repurposing of…”

“Not all iconography is subjective.”

“Oh, with Photoshop, it totally is.”

Steve finally took his hand away from his face, folding his arms and nodding in partly-amused partly-resigned approval. “…Well, it’s certainly making a statement I agree with, I’ll give it that.”

“I knew you’d like it. And yeah, I can still move it to the bathroom if it weirds you out. No decent wall space, but it should fit on the back of the door.”

“No no, it’s fine here. It’s your apartment, you can decorate it however you want.”

Bucky nodded and smirked again, hoping to frame in his own mental photo album the absolutely priceless image of Steve beholding a modified “buy war bonds” poster of himself as Captain America with the new caption “I Want YOU: to Vaccinate Your Fucking Kids.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone was wondering: yes this poster does actually exist and it is amazing. I highly doubt it's actually for sale though, since it's a text manip and not full-on fanart, but I would love to find the original editor of that poster and ask if I can include it in this chapter because Yes.


	3. Company: The Rocky Horror Chapter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha takes Bucky out for a costumed midnight screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Things get gradually more awkward for there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So first, a bit of housekeeping: if you're just here for the Stucky and don't like BuckyNat, even in an ambiguous context, it is perfectly okay to skip this chapter if you like. Although I would like to also recommend [this comprehensive breakdown With Photographic Evidence](http://therothwoman.tumblr.com/post/163193257821/debunking-rumors-about-buckynat) debunking the epic misinformation discrediting the latter ship in the comics (tl;dr: they are loving consenting adults, please come learn the truth and Be Free From the Discourse). However, since the movies haven't stated (yet) that Bucky and Natasha have a shared history, the New Life(s) series runs on the assumption that they don't. Either way, I imagine they would have a lot to talk about.
> 
> Additional thanks to Natasha stan and poly!Bucky queen yawpkatsi on Tumblr for being a secondary beta reader for this chapter!
> 
> Chapter-specific tags: Diners, Polyamorous Character, Costumes

**Company**

Bucky: [I thought midnight screenings these days were just for the release of new movies?]

Natasha: [Rocky Horror’s a completely different beast. I’ll send you a cheat-sheet of audience participation cues.]

Natasha: [And hey, maybe we could even dress up.]

Bucky: [Do people do that?]

Natasha: [All the time. I’ve got plenty of stuff for it. Probably have something I can lend you.]

Bucky: [Oh. Thanks, that’d be great.]

Bucky: [Did you have something in particular in mind?]

Natasha: [lbr, with your physique you could easily pull off Rocky.]

Bucky: [Sooooo]

Bucky: [Gold underwear and a blond wig is what you’re saying]

Bucky: [Or am I dyeing my hair?]

Bucky: [Also, what does lbr mean?]

Natasha: [Let’s Be Real]

Natasha: [And yes. I’ve got a wig if you want. Or color spray.]

Natasha: [What’s your shoe size btw?]

Bucky had seen _The Rocky Horror Picture Show_ twice. Once on recommendation from Natasha as yet another “important cultural touchstone that you should know,” and again the morning after the first viewing because he wanted to be sure that he’d actually seen what he just saw. Also, maybe watching during the day would make the ending marginally less depressing. He knew the story and the characters and remembered chunks of songs, but actually sharing the experience with both familiar company and strangers who were going to be interacting with the material in a much more…involved way was going to be a completely new experience. Sure he’d been to plenty of shows where people cheered and applauded in the middle, but having specific lines that were meant to be followed by the audience blurting something out in unison was different. He and Natasha agreed to meet up for the next show the following week. In the interim, he received a package containing a blond wig, the infamous golden Speedo, and a matching pair of gold boots. Thank goodness it was spring, because while he had plenty of experience with the cold, he’d always been wearing actual clothes for it.

Natasha: [Come down to the lab and see what’s on the slab ;)]

The evening arrived and Natasha swung around with a car. Thank god, because while Bucky suspected he would feel less self-conscious once they actually got to the theater and joined the costumed mob, he wasn’t terribly keen on the idea of going out in the city half-naked and wearing gold when it wasn’t Halloween. Or Pride Week. Slipping on the hologram sleeve that the scientists in Wakanda had made for him in the event that he needed to cover his entire metal arm in public, Bucky went down to join Natasha. It took him a few seconds to recognize her, what with the curly black wig and the blocks of eyeshadow. Thanks to her Black Widow outfit, he’d seen her in skintight black before, albeit…well…with more of it.

“Evening, Magenta,” said Bucky as he passed around to the passenger side and slid in the door.

“That’s Doctor Frank-N-Furter to you,” Natasha corrected with a pointed look and a half-smile.

“Oh. Right. Sorry,” said Bucky, buckling his seatbelt as Natasha took off and started driving towards downtown Manhattan. He decided it was probably best not to think too hard on the implications of being dressed up as the character who was basically created to be a living sex toy by the character the woman next to him was dressed as… _wait, no, quit that talk, Barnes. She’s a lady-friend taking you out for a fun night at the movies. Nothing wrong or weird about that. This time it just happens to be in sparkly sexual revolution gear. That’s fine. You missed all the fun parts of the ‘60s and ‘70s. You’re catching up. And for godsakes stop staring at her, that’s rude._

For about half a second, Bucky thought the most surprising part of the evening was the fact that they actually managed to find a parking spot within ten minutes of the theater. Then he remembered where he was going. He and Natasha fit right in with the crowd, a sea of wild hair and leather and even the occasional conservatively-dressed Brad and Janet. Once the show started, the theater became a cacophony of loud clashing jokes that really only seemed to come together properly during songs and, what Bucky could only assume were, the more “classic” audience participation lines. It was confusing and not exactly pleasant. Bucky had been under the assumption that there was a definitive set of cues that everyone knew and would say in unison, but that was shaping up to not quite be the case. He stayed silent for the entire finale after the last song and was one of the first to get up after that cryptic final line: “Lost in time, and lost in space…and meaning.” Natasha followed after him.

“A bit much?” she asked once they were in the lobby. Bucky hesitated before answering.

“Yeah,” he said, “a bit much.” He put a finger to his temple and rubbed it, closing his eyes. There was a gentle pat on his back.

“You up for some diner food?” said Natasha. “There’s a twenty-four hour place a few blocks from here.”

Bucky opened his eyes and nodded. “That sounds fantastic, I’m starving.” He took one step towards the door before realizing, “Wait a sec…would they even let me in like this? ‘No shirt, no shoes, no service,’ and all that? I mean, I’ve got the shoes but no shirt…or pants…” Natasha nodded her head in what Bucky could only assume was the vaguest of directions in which they parked.

“Brought a couple of coats in case it got chilly tonight,” she said. “We’ll grab those and then get food.”

Bucky honestly wasn’t sure what made him look more suspect: walking around New York City after midnight wearing nothing but a gold Speedo and boots, or walking around New York City after midnight wearing a trench coat that covered just enough of his legs that it was clear he might not be wearing pants. He’d have to assume the former for now, because the coat did get him and Natasha into the diner. They sat at a booth, ordered their food (“Jesus, when was the last time I had an omelet? I usually just make regular ol’ scrambled eggs.”), and waited in silence for a minute.

“Ssssssso…” Bucky finally breathed, pulling off the wig.

“So,” echoed Natasha, removing her own wig. “I’m thinking this wasn’t one of my better plans. Sensory overload?”

Bucky shook his head. “No, I’m not really sure I’d call it that,” he said. “It was just…a bit more chaotic than I expected. Wait, hang on, that’s exactly a sensory overload thing. You’re right.” He put a finger to his temple again.

“I’m sorry,” said Natasha. “The crowds aren’t always that rambunctious.”

“No no, it’s not your fault, I…” Bucky finished rubbing small circles into his forehead and put his hand back down, eyes turning back to Natasha. “Thank you, this was…interesting,” Bucky stumbled. “You’ll forgive me if this sounds like a dumb question after all this but, do you do this a lot?”

“I’ve done it several times in several different cities,” said Natasha. “It’s a good time if the audience is right. I tried to take Steve to one a while back, but he politely declined on the grounds that one viewing was plenty for him.” 

Bucky chuckled. “Yeah, he’s not as vanilla as he looks, but even he has his limits,” he said. “Which reminds me, I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you for looking after him while I was…a problem.”

Natasha propped up her right elbow on the table and rested her chin in her palm. “I don’t think Steve Rogers needs ‘looking after’ so much as he needs companionship,” she said. “Of course, I wasn’t the one who was friends with him before the serum. The stories go that he was quite a little firecracker even back then.”

Bucky gave a faint groan and shoved his face into his palms. “Ohhhh man, the stories I could tell…sometimes I wonder if they would’ve found him dead in an alley if it weren’t for me. But yeah, maybe you’re right,” he continued, pulling his palms down over his jaw before moving them to the side and leaning against both elbows. “Maybe he doesn’t need ‘looking after’ anymore, he just needs friends. Love.”

“And what about you?”

Bucky half-raised a single eyebrow. “What about me?”

“You managed by yourself in Romania for two years, did you have anyone?”

“You just said it yourself: I managed alone. Too dangerous to get anyone else involved with me.”

“That sounds rough. You strike me as a bit of an extrovert, considering how much you call and text us.”

“Being by yourself gets tiring after a while, and yeah, I do feel at my best in the company of others. Usually.” Bucky found himself leaning against his left arm, mirroring Natasha’s pose for a few moments before she moved her hand out from under her chin. “When do you think Steve and I can move back in together?”

“When it’s safer.”

“You could join us? Start a new Avengers compound? Steve seems pretty fond of you.”

“I’ve never been what you’d call the domestic type, but I’ll certainly consider the offer,” Natasha tapped the table once with a single fingernail. Part of Bucky wanted to scold him again for staring, but no, this was just making conversational eye contact.

There was something about Natasha’s eyes, the intensity maybe, that reminded him of an old face. Before he realized the words spilling out of his mouth, he said, “During the war, Steve was able to keep something going with both me and Peggy. I never understood how he managed that, it always seemed like a miracle to me.”

Natasha’s lip curled up in an ah-that-explains-a-lot sort of way. “That’s called ‘polyamory’. It’s a balancing act, for sure, but it’s entirely doable. Plenty of people like that these days.”

Bucky’s eyes widened. “There’s…there’s actually a name for that, wow…So that thing Steve thought was going on between you and Barton and Dr. Banner…”

“As much as I would love to tell you all the ways you are wrong, I think that’s our food,” Natasha quickly interrupted, pointing just over Bucky’s shoulder. They were mostly silent as Bucky inhaled his bacon and cheese omelet and Natasha worked her way through a stack of buttermilk pancakes. When the check arrived, Bucky immediately reached for it. “Ah, what do you think you’re doing?” said Natasha, reaching out her own hand and gripping Bucky’s as it hovered over the check.

“Hey,” he said, putting up his other hand. “You paid for our tickets, I pay for food. It’s only fair.” After a beat, Natasha let go of his right hand. Bucky kinda wished she’d stayed there a bit longer, though. He was growing touch-starved again and that grip felt nice. He leaned down and pulled his wallet out of his right boot, sorting out a few bills and putting them on the table. Another few beats. “Let’s go back to my place.”

“For?” asked Natasha.

Bucky shrugged. He wasn’t exactly expecting that response. “I dunno, a drink?” He sighed. “I’m sorry, with Steve out of town negotiating things with Stark, it’s been a lonely week. I could just…use the company.”

“Okay then.”

“Okay? Okay, great!”

The two wound up swapping Steve Rogers nightmare stories on the way back, Bucky detailing the number of times he’d had to drag (verbally or physically, usually physically) Steve away from some sort of tussle, and Natasha spinning the tale of Steve preferring to jump out of a plane with no parachute than discuss potential dating partners with her. Bucky needed to bury his face in his hand for a minute after hearing that one. He happened to look up again as something caught his eye on the curb.

“Woah, Nat pull over a sec,” he said. She did, and Bucky got out to investigate something very useful-looking sitting next to some large garbage bags. “Hello beautiful, who’d want to get rid of you? You look in fine shape.” He inspected the bookcase from all sides, looking for mold or cracks or any other signs of serious damage. It was about four feet high, and wide enough for him to be able to pick it up from the sides. “C’mon, I’ll take you in.” He brought it back to the car and asked Natasha, “You got room in the back for this?”

“Hopefully,” she said. “Between this and your book collection, you certainly have a knack for picking up strays.”

“What can I say? I feel like we’re kindred spirits,” Bucky replied. “Secondhand, second chances.” Natasha got out of the car to help him. Furniture successfully loaded, they went back on their way before arriving in Bucky’s neighborhood and hauling the bookcase the two blocks and up the two flights of stairs between their parking space and Bucky’s apartment.

“You got a washcloth I can use?” asked Natasha once they’d put the bookcase in the empty corner next to Bucky’s stacks of books. “I’m ready to get this makeup off.”

“Yeah,” said Bucky, gesturing towards the back of the apartment. “Bathroom’s on the right. Actually, wait, before you go…” He walked over to the coat hooks next to the kitchenette where he hung his Polaroid camera, pointing to it and then at himself and Natasha. “Do you mind if…”

“For your album? Sure.” Natasha came over as Bucky took the camera off the hook, leaning together and snapping a photo. Bucky started wiping down the bookcase as Natasha washed her face. He figured he could spend some time tomorrow loading it with books and getting them organized the way he liked. For now he just wanted to get the residual dust and street dirt off. Or did he just need to keep himself busy to keep himself from thinking about what was going to happen next? Was he making moves on Natasha? Had he actually been polyamorous this whole time and was only just realizing it now that he knew the word? Was she making moves on him? Were they friends? Were they just studying each other? Was dressing friends up in gold Speedos and taking them out in front of strangers A Thing That Happened in the twenty-first century? He was becoming increasingly glad he’d invited her back for drinks, because god knows he needed one right now. Bucky heard the bathroom sink turn off and he stood up to go fetch the beer, withdrawing two bottles as Natasha reentered the room.

“We’re in luck,” said Bucky, handing her one. “These were my last two.”

“Bottle opener?” she quipped.

“Oh right,” Bucky set his bottle down and took Natasha’s back. “Perks of the arm.” He held the bottle in his right hand as he clicked two metal fingers to the cap. Catching the edge of it on a groove, he snapped it off in one motion. Handing her the bottle again, he found himself almost immediately distracted by Natasha’s face again. The Frank-N-Furter makeup had struck him as a bit extreme, even in the movie, and he could tell there were still shades of it on her. Bucky was staring again, but it didn’t seem to be bothering either of them this time. He realized his lips were hanging apart and closed them, only to open them again by speaking: “Who are you, Natasha Romanov?”

“Is this an interrogation?” she replied, giving the slightest eyebrow raise Bucky had ever seen in his life.

“No, I’m just…curious.”

Natasha folded her arms. “Well, I’m an ex-Soviet agent, ex-SHIELD agent, possibly ex-Avenger who’s tussled with everything from men to monsters to magic and come out alive. I’ve got enough blood on my hands to keep Red Cross stocked for a year. And now I’m a woman standing in your kitchen after a night of cult classics, diners, and rescued furniture.”

Bucky’s eyes narrowed. “Why me?”

“Pardon?” said Natasha, taking a hearty swig of beer.

Bucky wanted to say, “Why did you dress _me_ up in a gold Speedo?” before a darker voice in his head murmured _It was her idea but you didn’t say no._ He quickly hushed it with _I was feeling adventurous and now I have regrets. There’s no shame in trying something and not liking it._ Instead he said, “Steve said you called me a ‘ghost story’ once. And then I turn out to be real and you switch to Stark’s side. What am I to you?”

Natasha lowered the half-empty bottle before replying. “The discovery of you had nothing to do with my view of the Accords. But to be perfectly frank, you…intrigue me.”

Bucky’s mind whirred, trying to determine if he should take that as a compliment or just another sign of Natasha being cryptic. “Is it the arm or the murder or…?”

“You’ve spent a long time being molded into something you’re not,” she continued. “Been made to do horrible things either against your will or under false pretenses or just because you were told it was right. Or just because someone told you and you couldn’t say no. Any mission could’ve been the end of you, but circumstance intervened and you lived to see a better day. A better life. Let’s just say I’m not unfamiliar with that story. So I guess that makes us…how’d you put it before? Kindred spirits, I guess.” She downed the rest of the bottle, took a glance at the clock on the microwave, then, “It’s after four AM, let’s go to bed. Wait, _you’re_ going to bed, _I’m_ going to couch.”

“Right,” said Bucky. “Umm…I have a shirt you can borrow.” Bucky nipped into the bedroom and dug around in his dresser, pulling out an oversized gray t-shirt with “Brooklyn” emblazoned on the front in bold collegiate typeface. Bringing it to Natasha, she retreated to the bathroom to change out of the leather getup that Bucky imagined couldn’t be that comfortable to sleep in. He motioned to drain the rest of his beer, only to be reminded that he hadn’t even opened it when the cap knocked into his teeth. Bucky tore the cap off, chugged the entire bottle in one go, and thankfully didn’t have anything in his mouth when Natasha returned and made the inevitable comment about the throw-rug on his couch.

“You certainly have an…interesting taste in living room décor.”

“Oh, that? Guess you could call it another ‘stray.’ Got it in a thrift shop. It’s ugly as hell but it’s comfortable as heaven. Uh, can I get you an actual pillow or…?”

“Appreciate the thought, but the couch cushion’s fine.”

“Okay. G’night, Natasha.”

“Good night, Barnes.”

Bucky returned to the bedroom and closed the door behind him. Before removing the rest of the Rocky costume, he withdrew his phone from the left boot and angled himself as best he could to get a full-body selfie to send to Steve.

Bucky: [Remind me to call you about this tomorrow.]

Bucky plugged his phone into the charger on the nightstand and got dressed for bed, experiencing for possibly the first time in his life the sensation of relief at getting to put pants on again. Leaving the Speedo and boots next to the dresser (the wig was still down in the car), Bucky turned out the lights and climbed into bed just as a reply text from Steve came in.

Steve: [Wow…there’s a story here, I can tell.]

Bucky: [Indeed]

Bucky put his phone down and lay facing the wall in silence for a few minutes before the strangeness of the night crumbled into exhaustion and sleep took him.

* * *

 

Nightmares tended to happen less frequently when Bucky had the presence of someone friendly nearby, but that didn’t guarantee anything. That morning’s venture was still a bit unusual, though, because it was one of the few times that Bucky was not seeing his own dream as himself. He was in the body of a child, in an alley, watching the scene from a few yards away. The sky was red. There was a man there, begging for mercy from the tall imposing figure standing over him and holding a gun to his head. Winter Soldier. Bucky reached out and screamed wordlessly as the gunshot went off.

He jerked awake, taking a few seconds to listen for any subsequent gunshots, only to realize that it was a particularly loud passing truck. Tears stained his face, but he made no motion to wipe them off. Partly because the sensation didn’t bother him too much, and partly because his flesh and blood hand was already occupied. He looked down to see Natasha’s fingers intertwined with his, and felt the rest of her body leaning against his back.

He opted not to question it. Yet. For now he was just grateful for the contact. Yeah, this was good. This was nice. He could live with this. Bucky smiled into his pillow as he gave Natasha’s hand a thank-you squeeze and drifted off again.

* * *

 

Bucky’s sleep-heaviness was a fickle thing, so while Natasha’s Santa intrusion on Christmas went unnoticed, her movement in his bedroom did rouse him. Sunlight was peeking in through the window blinds and Bucky saw that Natasha had put her costume back on from the night before, presumably from lack of having any other clothes with her. She was at the dresser, gathering up the Rocky costume.

“Removing the cause, but not the symptom, eh Dr. Frank?” Bucky mumbled over his shoulder.

“On the day I went away, ‘goodbye’ was all I had to say,” said Natasha, stepping towards Bucky’s side of the bed.

“Oh, woe is me. My life is a misery,” Bucky half-sang, propping himself up on his left elbow. “Oh, can’t you see that I’m at the start of a really big downer?”

“You know, I was going to say ‘that ain’t no crime’,” said Natasha, “but sooner or later we’re going to run out of quotes in relative context to use on each other, so I’m quitting us while we’re ahead. Isn’t it uncomfortable leaning on that arm?”

Bucky scrunched his face a little, indecisively. “Sometimes?” He took a breath before continuing. “Hey, listen, about last night…I woke up and you were…”

“I heard you from the living room,” she said. “Didn’t want to leave you completely defenseless against the voices in the night. Been there, done that, don’t wish it on others.”

“Oh. Thank you. You know, you have surprisingly soft hands for a field agent.”

“Thanks, I moisturize.” Natasha moved towards the door. “Now that’s a reference you’ll get once one of us starts you on another sci-fi classic that you missed most of but can still get on board with.”

“I…would not have pegged that as a reference to anything,” said Bucky. “Really, though, don’t go yet. C’mon, I’ll make us breakfast.”

“Sorry,” said Natasha with a smile, “duty calls.”

“It does? I thought we were laying low?”

“Places to go, things to do, City That Never Sleeps, etcetera,” said Natasha, hand on the doorframe and motioning to leave before stopping and pointing at the far wall. “Please tell me Rogers knows about that poster.”

“In the good way, or the bad way?”

“Good way.”

“He does.”

“What does he think?”

“I think he finds it mildly amusing, but he doesn’t see it for the work of modern art that it is.”

“Shame,” said Natasha. “It’ll make a great museum piece someday.” She tapped her nails against the doorframe once before exiting. “Don’t be afraid to text.” Bucky heard the sound of Natasha gathering up their costume-cover coats before departing through the front door. Silence. Bucky stayed there for another minute before his jaw started to ache from the pressure against his metal hand, at which point he got up and locked the door before retrieving his phone and calling Steve. He picked up immediately.

“Hey. So I take it Natasha roped you into that midnight screening of _Rocky Horror_?”

“Yeah,” said Bucky, scratching the side of his head with his free hand. “And it’s not just that, I…wow, I’ve just had a really weird…well I guess it wasn’t ‘night’ since everything was after midnight, so…yeah, a really weird morning.”

“What happened?”

“That’s…what I’m still trying to figure out. I mean, Natasha came back to my place and then we talked and then she slept in my bed and then she left…”

“Hang on, did you two…you know…”

“Please _please_ don’t tell me the next word in that sentence is ‘fondue’, Steve, I know you can say ‘sex’.”

“Okay, I won’t tell you.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “But no, we didn’t do that.”

“Alright, just walk me through everything from start to finish.”

“Right,” said Bucky, taking a deep breath. “So first Nat had me dress up like… _that_ , then she picked me up for the movie and then we saw the movie and then we went out and got food at a diner and then we came back here…oh, I finally picked up a bookcase, by the way…and then we each had a beer and talked about ourselves and then I went to bed and she slept on the couch and then she held my hand through a nightmare and when I woke up again, she was leaving.”

“Okay then,” said Steve. “Well, that’s what happened.”

Bucky furrowed his brow. “Just that?”

“Just that.”

“But…what about all the mixed messages and Natasha being a Mystery Woman and…did you know that whatever consensual love triangle we had with Peggy back in the day actually has a name? Apparently it’s ‘polyamory’?”

Steve sighed slightly. “Buck, here’s the thing about Natasha. I know she’s mysterious and sexy and powerful and that probably appeals to you. But you have to remember that she’s not like that because she’s a woman, she’s just…”

“…being Natasha,” they said in unison.

“Right,” Steve continued, “and she’s still someone I trust considerably. We’ve been through a lot. Not as much as _us_ , obviously, but I trust her to know what she wants and to make her own decisions. Whatever last night was, it does sound like she was trying to be there for you.”

Bucky hummed noncommittally. “What d’you think, Steve? Am I polyamorous? Kinda feel like that’s the only explanation here, because I’d never leave _you_ for anything.”

“You’re definitely bi, if nothing else, that’s for sure,” Steve said with a small chuckle. “Do you think you’re in love with Natasha, too?”

“I dunno,” Bucky sighed. “Honestly, I kinda hope not. I don’t know if I love her as a friend or I’m _in_ love with her or not, or in love with the _idea_ of her or not. I really hope it’s not the last one, that doesn’t sound too healthy.”

“Good man,” said Steve. “Well, when you do figure it out, I hope it works out for the best for both of you.”

“Was kinda hoping you’d give me more of a definitive answer about this,” said Bucky, chewing his lip a little.

“If nothing else, I can answer this definitively,” said Steve. “You are still my best guy and my lover, and it would take the breakdown of reality itself to change that.” Bucky was afraid the warmth from the affectionate glow of his face might melt the phone. “You know,” Steve continued, and Bucky could hear a fond smile creeping into his voice, “this used to be the stuff I came to _you_ about.”

“Well, I guess no one has all the answers,” said Bucky. “But thanks, really. This…helps…a bit…I suppose.”

“Hey, whatever I can do,” said Steve. “You good?”

“As good as I can be at this point,” Bucky replied. “See you later, man.”

“Take care!”

Bucky hung up and stared off into space for a bit. _Natasha Romanov is not a mystery for you to solve. She’ll tell you things when she wants to._ But on second thought, that wasn’t really what Bucky wanted in life in the first place, especially not now. The simpler the things, the better. He was glad he had Natasha in his life, as Steve’s friend and as an anchor to the modern world, but maybe it was best to keep it that way.

His phone vibrated with a text from Natasha. It read: [You are Bucky Barnes, and never forget that you are loved.] 

Bucky smiled and held the phone to his chest. Forget everything else about the night before, even if it still didn’t completely make sense. _This_ was what mattered. He was glad to have people in his life, and he was glad to have love.

He sent off a reply to Natasha: [Thanks, friend <3]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is loosely based on two events from my own life: the first half from the one time my friends and I went to a midnight screening of Rocky Horror when we were in high school, and the second half from at least one occasion where I spent some time wondering "okay wait I think I'm having these weird feelings for my friend and I'm not sure how to pin them down what is happening." The latter was Not a Great Time. So...yeah, sorry I hoisted that scenario onto you, Bucky. I think you turned out just fine though.


	4. Stray: The Cat Chapter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's summertime and Bucky makes an unexpected new friend. Also Steve comes over and they get naked for a bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah I can finally take the Eventual Smut tag off because this is the chapter that has a sex in it! I actually hesitate to use the top!Bucky and bottom!Steve tags for this, even though they apply to this particular scene, because I headcanon them as switches but the scene itself only has a couple lines or so to suggest that. Either way, I thought this would also make a great post for Soft Stucky Week 2016 over on Tumblr, since drama is minimal and fluff is in abundance. Have fun!
> 
> Chapter-specific tags: Ice Cream, Coitus Interruptus, Comedy, Sexual Content

**Stray**

“So many ice cream flavors, so little time…” Bucky murmured.

“Yeah, it’s a bit much, isn’t it?” Steve replied.

“Now _that_ is insinuating that there is such thing as ‘too much ice cream’. I said ‘so many,’ not ‘too much.’ Oh hey, I found one themed after you.”

Bucky had built up a new small roster of methods for trying to deal solo with the aftermath of nightmares: listen to something (music, audiobooks, the idle droning of late-night TV, or more recently, podcasts), take a walk, go a block over to pick up a treat or two from the local 24-hour drug store, or some combination thereof. While he wished he could have Steve there to hold him through the worst of the horrors in his head, he was unfortunately forced to face most of them alone. Tears were common and he’d taken up the habit of pillow-hugging in lieu of the human contact he so desperately craved. Steve had assured him on multiple occasions that Bucky could call him at any time for any reason and he would be there, to talk or just to listen.

Bucky had something of a mental scale for nightmare severity at this point: on the low end were milder or more common flashes that mostly faded from his mind upon waking up, leaving only a vague sense of “well that was fucked up.” After nightmares on the higher end of the scale, the kind where Bucky woke up shaking all over and needed a pillow-scream or two and couldn’t go back to sleep for hours, he would video-chat with Steve for a bit until he felt anchored in reality again. It wasn’t a perfect substitute for having someone there in the room with him, but compared to World War II telecommunications technology, it was damn near a miracle.

Tonight’s terror had been comparatively run-of-the-mill: screaming, blood, gunfire, until someone in the dream had run a knife through his stomach. Bucky woke up to find himself so agonizingly hungry that the first thing he did was stumble to the bathroom to throw up bile. After cleaning himself up, he munched on an apple for a bit to take the edge off before finding himself with a sudden craving for ice cream. Made sense. It was a hot summer night, after all. He decided to give Steve a call anyway, because chatting with loved ones about ice cream at 3 o’clock in the morning still felt like a pleasant antidote to nightmares and vomiting.

“So who’s ‘Stephen Cole-bert’?” Bucky asked as he examined the pint of the aforementioned America-themed ice cream.

“Oh, Stephen Colbert!” said Steve. “Late night talk show host, comedian, probably one of the greatest satirists of the twenty-first century. Big fan, too. He had a replica of my shield on his set back when he had his own comedy news show.”

“Huh, I should check him out sometime,” said Bucky, reading the list of contents. “His ice cream looks a bit more…extravagant than what I want right now, though. Hmm…you know, I think I’m just gonna be boring and get Peanut Butter Cup.”

“Hey, whatever helps you feel better, Buck.”

“Spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, and all that,” said Bucky as he took out a pint of Peanut Butter Cup ice cream. “Speaking of which, guess where I am in my Disney catch-up?”

“You finally watched _Mary Poppins_?”

“Yep!”

“What’d you think?”

“Oh, Steve, it was incredible. I never thought I’d get emotional about a banker, but I swear I almost cried when Mr. Banks was going to lose his job.”

“What’s next on your list?”

“ _The Jungle Book_.”

“That’s a good one, you’ll like that.”

They wrapped up their conversation before Bucky went to pay for his late-night snack, and he strode out of the store with an ever-so-slight spring in his step. He hadn’t even rounded the corner before he found himself whistling “A Spoonful of Sugar,” falling into a loop of just whistling the chorus on repeat for lack of remembering the rest of the actual song. As he passed the bank on the next corner, he realized he had some unexpected musical accompaniment.

“Maow!”

Bucky stopped.

“Maooooow!”

It was definitely a cat, but Bucky couldn’t see anything. Then a shadow moved out from behind a fire hydrant.

“Mww…”

From what Bucky could tell by the streetlamps, the cat was completely black. Black and very skinny. Unhealthly skinny.

“Hey there, little guy,” said Bucky, taking a cautious step towards it. “When was the last time anyone fed you?” The cat approached and promptly became very friendly with Bucky’s ankles, rubbing its head against him affectionately. He reached down to pet it and the cat began nuzzling his hand while purring faintly. After a minute, it stopped and sat down, looking up at Bucky expectantly with wide green eyes while its tail flopped back and forth. “I’m sorry, I don’t have any…hang on.” He looked back in the direction of the drug store and then waved a finger at the cat. “Wait right here.” Bucky fast-walked back to the store and found that yes, they did have canned tuna. He bought several cans (hey, he might as well get a few for himself while he was out) and exited the store to find…oh. The cat was already there, waiting patiently just outside the door.

“Maow!”

“You,” said Bucky as he opened a can, “are a very smart kitty.” He placed the tuna in front of the cat, who immediately dove in and started lapping it up. Bucky had half a mind to stick around so he could throw out the tin when the cat was done, but it was the height of summer and he wasn’t sure how long his ice cream was going to last outside, even at night. So he bid a quick goodbye to the cat and went on his way. He reached his apartment building a few minutes later. Entering the front vestibule and withdrawing his keys, he heard a faint scratching sound from the door behind him.

“Maooow!”

Bucky turned around, face falling and half despairing at his new tag-along. “Oh no,” he said, walking back to the front door. “I’m sorry, I can’t take you in! The building doesn’t allow pets! And even if it did, I don’t know if I could afford to feed you or keep you happy because I barely have enough to do that myself!” He ran an anguished hand through his hair as the cat leaned against the glass with its front paws. “Please don’t give me that look, I…”

Five minutes later, Bucky was sitting on his couch, digging into his ice cream while he watched his new four-legged friend drink down a bowl of fresh cold water. Well, he figured, there were considerably worse aftermaths of nightmares than ice cream and cats.

* * *

 

The following afternoon, Bucky organized a four-way video chat with the others to ask for advice on “a small problem.”

“Okay, we’re all here,” said Sam once they were all logged on. “So what’s this ‘small problem’ you couldn’t text us about?”

“Well,” said Bucky, leaning over and picking up the cat, “here he is.” There was a brief chorus of “aww”s before Natasha spoke up.

“I thought your building didn’t allow pets?” she said.

“Exactly,” said Bucky. “Therein lies the problem.”

“Where’d you find him?” asked Steve.

“On the way back from our ice cream chat this morning,” said Bucky. “He came up to me and he was skinny as, well, Steve, as you used to be but worse, so I got him some tuna and then he followed me back and…would it be less cliché of me to say ‘I couldn’t say no to that face’ or ‘c’mon, I couldn’t just leave him there’?”

“You sure it’s male?” said Natasha.

“Yeah,” said Bucky. “I just looked up ‘how to tell gender of cat’ online and yeah, Banks is a boy.”

“’Banks’?” echoed Sam.

“Umm, yeah,” said Bucky, looking away sheepishly for a second. “I, uh, found him in front of a bank. And I had the _Mary Poppins_ soundtrack stuck in my head.”

“Heh, Bucky ‘n Banks,” Sam chuckled. “I’m not sure if that’s a two-man comedy show or a buddy cop movie.”

“But you’re not keeping him, right?” Natasha interjected. “I mean, you can’t?”

“Nat, forgive me for saying so,” said Bucky, “but you seem determined to separate me from this cat.”

“I just don’t want you getting in trouble with your superintendent,” she replied. “Took us a while to find you that place, I don’t think any of us would like you getting kicked out.”

Bucky sighed, idly petting Banks’ back. “Believe me, I’d love to keep him, but I can’t just dump him in a shelter. I’ve read about how full they are these days. And I can’t put him back on the street, that’s just cruel. Looks like something took a chunk out of his ear, too.”

“Actually, the ear’s a good sign,” said Natasha. “That means he’s been through a Trap-Neuter-Release program. Might even be part of a feral colony, but he probably wasn’t if no one was feeding him. Either way, he’s been fixed, so that’s one less thing to worry about.”

“Which leaves everything else to worry about,” said Bucky. “I’d need to find him another home, or I’d need to figure out a way to keep him. And even if keeping him did work out, I’d have to get him food and litter and a vet…”

“If all you’re doing is trying to keep a house pet, leave the extra costs to us,” Natasha interjected again.

Bucky raised his eyebrows. “You keep saying that about ‘extra costs’. D’you mind me asking where all this money is coming from?”

Natasha folded her arms. “Classified information, but I promise it’s legal.”

“And as for the bigger question,” said Sam, “if you do wanna keep that cat, I think I’ve got the perfect solution: get him registered as an Emotional Support Animal.”

“Oh!” said Bucky, scratching Banks at the back of the neck. “That sounds great! How do I do that?”

“You can do it online, I’ll send you some links. Might take a while, though. You’ll need a healthcare professional to vouch that an animal is definitely a benefit to your mental health, and last time I checked that title probably doesn’t apply to me. But keep him around for a week or two and get back to me.”

“Wow, thank you so much, guys, I owe you one.”

“Yeah, you bet you do…” Sam muttered, not quite under his breath. They chatted for a few more minutes before Sam and Natasha left to go run some errands. Steve stayed on the call briefly.

“Mind if I come over and meet the new guy tonight?” he asked. “It’s been a rough week, I could use an Emotional Support Animal myself right about now.”

“D’you mean me or this guy?” said Bucky, patting Banks, who had been sitting patiently in Bucky’s lap the whole call.

Steve smiled. “What do you think?”

“Do you even have to ask? Come on over, I’ll get us a pizza.”

“With anchovies?”

“Very funny.”

Steve arrived a couple hours later with a very tiny present. It looked like a small silver cylinder on a keyring.

“A…keychain?” asked Bucky.

“Word is that when you’re a cat owner these days,” Steve explained, “these are the best buck-fifties you can invest in. Point it at the floor and press the button.” Bucky did so, creating a small red dot of light next to the couch. Banks sprinted from across the room, missing his target by a foot before scrambling back and pawing frantically at it. Bucky moved the dot a few feet to the side and Banks followed it.

“Huh!” said Bucky, moving the pointer around every few seconds. “Well, at least I won’t have to worry about him getting exercise. Thanks.”

“No problem.”

They played around a bit with Banks and the pointer for another few minutes before Bucky pocketed it and turned back to Steve. “So what’s this ‘rough week’ you’ve been having?”

“Let’s sit down for this,” Steve sighed. He spent the next fifteen minutes detailing the latest wave of fallout and crisis management in the ongoing negotiations with Tony Stark, the possibility of Clint’s family being compromised, Wanda’s situation, whatever the hell Scott’s deal was, and yet Steve managed to come out the end of it saying, “In the grand scheme of things, we could be a lot worse.” Bucky refrained from challenging that, even though it felt like the logical course of action at first. He was still here, in his own place, with his own growing collection of new stuff, living his own life. And that was a lot, considering.

“I almost wanna tell you to take a break,” said Bucky, “but I know that’ll do about as much good as pissing on a house fire. Actually, correction: it’ll do about as much good as pissing on a house fire _into the wind_. But hey, _you_ do good. It’s what you do. It’s what you’ve always done.”

Steve nodded faintly. “Yeah, I try.”

A long pause. Bucky pursed his lips. “… _I’m_ good.”

Steve glanced at him very slowly out of the corner of his eye.

“You could do m…”

“Okay first of all, Buck, that was a _terrible_ pick-up line. Second…”

They were on the bed, Steve on top of Bucky, fiercely lip-locked and mostly naked less than a minute later. It was good to have everything else fall away for a bit, leaving just the two of them breathing each other in with their hands everywhere, rediscovering old territory.

“How long’s it been?” Bucky breathed as Steve kissed and suckled at his neck.

“A week, I think?” said Steve as he massaged the skin just below the hem of Bucky’s underwear. “Too long.”

“So how d’you want to do it this time?

“Why don’t you lay back and let me get us started?”

“That sounds like a pla—aaaahhhh…” Bucky closed his eyes and let his head sink back as Steve rolled down Bucky’s briefs and took him into his mouth. It was probably a tactile thing, but Bucky always enjoyed petting Steve’s hair during blowjobs. He ran his fingers through the fluffy golden locks and made a faint guttural rumbling sound as Steve licked at him. “Oh god…Steve…you’re warm, you know that?” Steve gently patted Bucky’s flank as he continued. He was going slow and languid. They had the whole evening and then the whole night ahead of them, no need to rush anything. Bucky could just sit back and…

“Maoooow!” There was a scratching sound at the door.

“Shit!” Bucky blurted out, slapping his right hand against the bed and bolting upright. Steve gagged a little at the sudden jump of the dick in his mouth, drawing back quickly.

“What?”

“I forgot to feed Banks! Hang on a sec, Steve, I’ll be right back.” Bucky slid off the bed, pulling his underwear up before he went so as to avoid tripping over them, and opened the door. Sure enough, there was Banks, meowing hungrily at him just outside the bedroom. “Hey, I’m sorry about that,” said Bucky. “Lemme get you some food.” Banks followed Bucky to the kitchenette where the new cat-owner withdrew a can of tuna, opened it, and set it on the floor. Sooner or later, Bucky would have to get him some real cat food, but he figured this would do for the first few days. Feline thusly fed, Bucky went back to the bedroom where Steve was right where he’d left him, sitting on his knees in front of the bed. “And, sorry about _that_ ,” said Bucky, returning to the bed and resting on his metal elbow. He put on a professional manservant tone before continuing, eyebrows aflutter. “With regards to our unfortunate interruption, Captain Rogers, I have every intention to make it up to you in full.”

Steve smirked at him. “I bet you do.”

About twenty minutes later, Bucky had him bent over, face down against the pillows, and panting like a man in a marathon. It had taken a while for Bucky to get used to Steve’s sex noises after the serum. He’d heard plenty of his partner’s asthmatic wheezing when they were younger lads and sometimes Bucky forgot that he didn’t need to worry about Steve having that particular breathing problem anymore. For right now, it was just the pure gasps of pleasure as Bucky took Steve from behind, holding Steve’s neck down with his metal hand and binding his wrists with his right hand. Bucky had his full glove on, mostly to avoid pinching any nerves in Steve’s neck with the grooves in the metal, but ostensibly because Steve seemed to really quite enjoy the feeling of faux-leather against his skin while he was being fucked.

“It seems I have no choice but to trust your word, since I can’t see your cock through your back,” Bucky growled in a commanderly tone. Role-play wasn’t exactly a common theme in their lovemaking, but they did tend to slip into speech patterns that matched whatever position they were in. Bucky continued, “How hard are you?”

“Kind of aches…” Steve breathed. “Please…please touch me there…”

“Hmm,” Bucky mused aloud as he rotated his hips against Steve’s flesh. “I will give you a choice: do you want my touch, or do you want to touch yourself?”

“Your touch…” Steve answered. “With the glove, please…”

Bucky curled the corner of his mouth up. “Your wish is my command. Keep your hands where they are for…five seconds.” In as quick a motion as he could, Bucky released Steve’s wrists with his right hand to pick up the tube of lube from the side of the bed, flipped open the cap, squeezed a dollop into the palm of the glove, snapped the cap back on, put the tube down, and grabbed Steve’s wrists again. Bucky teased Steve a little at first, running the tips of his gloved fingers along Steve’s abdomen before reaching his dick and brushing against it. “Say the word, Rogers.”

“Now…!”

“Eager tonight, aren’t we?” said Bucky, coiling his fingers around Steve’s hardness and beginning to stroke, gently at first but then with a gradual increase in speed and grip. “You know, since the arm is a machine, theoretically it could never tire,” Bucky continued as he leaned in as close to Steve’s ear as their bodies would allow, lowering his voice to a husky whisper. “If I had my druthers, I could pump you for _days_ and not let you cum…” He thumbed at Steve’s slit for emphasis. “…leaving you on the edge, never knowing when I might…”

“Maow!”

Bucky froze. He turned his head while Steve opened his eyes to look at the left side of the bed where Banks had just leapt up and was sitting patiently, tail flickering.

“Ummmmm…”

“Buck,” Steve half-mumbled into the pillows, “did you forget to close the door?”

Bucky turned around, eyes widening sheepishly. “Yyyyes, it would appear that I did. Okay. I think this is officially the most awkward thing that’s ever happened to me in this bed.”

“Oh it’s not that bad,” Steve said, and Bucky couldn’t quite tell if he was being sarcastic or not. “We’ll just give him The Talk, tell him that Dad and his best friend sometimes do this because they love each other very much…”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Bucky with a half-smile, suppressing a chuckle. “I’ll just put him out. Wait, uhh…” Bucky took a second to actually look at himself. He had one clean hand, the other was slathered in lube with the glove on and a potential fur-catching hazard with the glove off, to say nothing of the fact that he was still balls deep in Steve’s ass. “Lemme just get out of you first.” He eased his still-stiff cock out of Steve, scooting back on his knees until he was free, before getting off the bed gingerly and going over to the attention-seeking cat. “C’mon, Banks, out you go.” He scooped up Banks with his right arm and carried him over to the bedroom door, depositing him outside and making sure the door was actually closed this time. “Apologies again.”

Bucky stopped and looked at Steve for a moment before returning to the bed. Outside the context of Bucky being on top of him, Steve did look just a tad silly lying face-down with his ass in the air like that. Bucky suppressed another chuckle and suppressed even harder the urge to duck out to the front room for a second to grab his Polaroid and snap a photo. The album was for scenic trips and memorable moments, and while this was both memorable and scenic, he did want to actually be able to share it with people later. He had half a mind to use his phone instead, but Natasha had warned him about “nude leaks” during her little masterclass on What Not To Do While Sexting.

“Now,” said Bucky, slipping back into his Top Night voice. “I think you’ve waited long and patiently enough. Time to finish you off.”

* * *

 

Once they were finally sated and no further interruptions from Banks were presumably forthcoming, Bucky and Steve lay next to each other in the fading light, catching what little breath they still needed and admiring the sight of each other in the afterglow.

“I’m sorry, Steve,” Bucky said suddenly.

“For the cat?” said Steve. “Don’t worry about it, new pet owners make mistakes all the time.”

“No, I mean…well, that, and…” Bucky sighed a little, “…I thought it sounded like I was trivializing your problems by making it about sex out of nowhere.”

“Honestly?” said Steve. “Thank you so much for jumping my bones like that, I needed the distraction.”

“I really do appreciate everything you’ve been doing for me…for us,” Bucky smiled. “It’s way more than I deserve, that’s for sure.”

“Oh, hush,” Steve scoffed, waving his hand in Bucky’s direction. “You’ve suffered enough. You’ve been through about ten lifetimes’ worth of hell. You deserve everything good in this world. You deserve a house and good food and friends and love…and you deserve to keep Banks, too. You deserve _a real life_.”

“Well,” said Bucky, “I’ve been living here, eating, sleeping, hanging out with you guys, learning, reading, watching, listening…sometimes even loving…” He gave Steve a very pointed and warm smile. “I’d say that’s pretty real.”

“Maow!”

“And I’d say that’s a pretty real cat that probably wants attention,” Bucky added. He got off the bed and went to the door, opening it to find Banks sitting outside. “You want in?” Banks sat there and stared at him. “C’mon, Banks, in or out?” Another few beats before Banks finally made up his mind and trotted into the bedroom, jumping up on the bed and approaching Steve.

“Hey there,” said Steve, petting Banks on the head and scratching his back. “Are you gonna keep Bucky good company while I’m out of the house?” Bucky stood beaming in the doorway for a minute before realizing that _this_ was an excellent photo op.

“Hey Steve, if I promise not to get you below the waist, can I get a shot of this for the album?”

“Sure!”

Bucky retrieved the Polaroid and managed to land the shot right before his human subject sneezed (“Steve Rogers, don’t you dare be allergic to my cat”), setting the camera and the photo on the dresser before rejoining Steve on the bed.

“Have you mostly been doing poses or candid shots?” Steve asked as Banks retreated to settle himself at the foot of the bed.

“A bit of everything,” said Bucky. “It’s fun, you should try it.”

“I kinda have been, actually,” said Steve. “Except I’ve been doing it the newfangled way on my phone. Sam’s proud that one of us is doing it ‘properly’.” He held his fingers up in air-quotes.

“He would be,” said Bucky. “You’ll have to show me sometime.”

“I could show you now, if you like.”

“Oh. Sure, go ahead!”

Steve went to retrieve his phone from where his pants lay discarded on the floor and started showing Bucky his digital collection. It was entirely shots of the city, new skyscrapers and landmarks, some areas that Bucky remembered from the old days that had changed completely. Bucky kept a running commentary of Steve’s photography skills, half expecting the digital photographer to stop him for being too critical or obnoxious, but instead they made it through the entire album and Steve set his phone down. He gazed off into the distance for a bit before commenting, “You know, Buck, sometimes I feel like you’re one of the only people who treats me like a human.”

Bucky’s eyes widened in indignation. “Treats you like a hu…Steve, c’mere.” He gestured between himself and Steve with an open hand, and Steve welcomed the invitation to settle against Bucky’s chest as his lover wrapped his arms around him and gave him a fierce affirming hug. “Listen,” Bucky continued as he reached up and ran a loving hand through Steve’s hair, “you are flawed, you bruise and you bleed and you make mistakes. You cry when sad things happen, you get angry when bad things happen, you get happy when good things happen. You have stood up against immeasurable odds and you have _survived_. And I think that’s the most human thing of all. But even so, you shouldn’t be expected to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. They say I shaped a century, but even that was a team effort…even though it was the wrong team. We’re superhumans, but we’re not gods.”

“Heh,” Steve chuckled. “I’d love to know what Thor would say to that.”

“Wait, he’s not literally a god, though, is he?”

“That might be up for debate. But either way…thank you, Buck.”

“Hey,” said Bucky with a warm grin. “What else am I here for?”

“You _are_ allowed to be your own person, you know,” said Steve. “Last time I checked, you were an individual who existed outside the scope of just me or just Hydra or just the SSR or SHIELD.”

“Well, if nothing else,” Bucky mused, “I’d like the scope of Just Me to overlap with the scope of Just You. A lot.”

“That sounds like a plan,” said Steve, nuzzling Bucky’s sternum sleepily. “Glad to be your overlap.”

“Glad to be yours.” Bucky let out a contented sigh as he stroked his thumb against the side of Steve’s head, feeling on the verge of sleep coming to claim him.

“…Wait, did we ever actually order that pizza?”

“ _Goddammit_ , I _knew_ I forgot something else!”


	5. TV: The Doctor Who Chapter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky decides to check out some 21st century sci-fi television and gets just a little bit more than he bargained for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which I take a few steps further and get Even More Self-Indulgent than the Pokemon scene from Re-establishing Contact. As a geeky BA-in-English-holder and certified Whovian, futzing around with reactions and thematic parallels between my favorite media like this was probably inevitable. Add to that the fact that Simmons referencing the TARDIS in Agents of SHIELD means that Doctor Who does exist as an actual series in the MCU. So I figured hey, why not make it a bit of a narrative? When I was first writing this chapter, it was mostly in the form of Bucky's text reactions to each season. But then I got stuck as I approached Season 6-8 because I felt like I knew them a lot less intimately (even though I watched them when they aired). Also, I didn't want to overwhelm non-Whovian Stucks with what was essentially turning into [Twitter Who](https://www.facebook.com/twitterwho/): Bucky Barnes Edition. To compromise, I've set those aside in [a separate fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9660833/chapters/21824630).
> 
> Chapter-specific tags: Television Watching, doctor who - Freeform, Panic Attacks

**TV**

Bucky: [Okay I just finished the first episode.]

Bucky: [We’ve already got alien time travelers, some sort of space war, murder mannequins, and exploding buildings.]

Bucky: [I’m not sure how much crazier this show can get.]

Sam: [oh]

Sam: [oh man you just wait]

* * *

 

It had started with a fairly simple question. While Banks the cat did a good job of keeping Bucky company during the day, his presence had not stopped Bucky’s nightmares. He hadn’t reasonably expected it to, though. There was a decrease, and Bucky having something warm and freely affectionate to hold in the aftermath every time was certainly a blessing, but he still kept up his repertoire of staying up and doing something to keep his mind and/or body active for a bit before attempting sleep again, if at all. During a group video call, Bucky brought up a desire for something a little more structured.

“Whenever I need a distraction by turning on the TV, I always just watch whatever’s on,” he said. “I’d like something to actually _watch_ , something that I can keep up with and get engaged in.”

There was a smattering of affirmative murmurs before Natasha said, “Easy enough, what are you interested in watching?”

Bucky considered for a moment. “Hmm. I want…something with adventure. Something about the little guys beating the odds. Something that doesn’t take itself too seriously but respects the weight of a situation when it needs to. Something with love. Something with…” His eyebrows lowered, thoughtfully. “Something with a home base. Someplace the characters can always come back to.”

The others looked contemplative for a second before Steve snapped his fingers. “I know one I’ve been enjoying.” 

Sam smirked. “Are we thinking of the same one?”

“Is it the same one I stopped watching after Season 6?” asked Natasha.

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

And then all three of them in unison: “ _Doctor Who_.”

* * *

 

For the most part, it was a great time. Bucky actually found himself watching it of his own accord instead of for nightmare balm more often than not. He loved all the characters and the wild stories, identified with some, and took offense at others (he had some angry caps-lock words to say about the two-parter that took place in 1930’s New York). If there was one issue he did have, it was with any story that involved memory erasure or reality alteration. And there were a number of those. He was fine through Human Nature and The Family of Blood, because there was an established sure-fire way for the Doctor-turned-John-Smith to be returned to his old self in a moment. The ending of Journey’s End, with poor Donna and her forced mind-wipe, was a significantly tougher sequence to go through. The one episode he couldn’t bring himself to finish at all was Amy’s Choice, because it was one thing to have an entire episode about switching between two perceived realities and being forced to determine which one was real, but the event’s orchestrator looking like the spitting image of Arnim Zola was a step too far. Still, ever-eager to know what happened next, he pressed on.

Nearly two hours later, his shaking fingers were hastily tapping to Steve’s number on his phone. The dial tone rang twice before Steve picked up. It had been months since Bucky was so relieved to hear his voice.

“Steve, I just…it was the ending of Cold Blood,” Bucky stumbled, trying to keep breathing. “…Rory died… _Amy had to watch him die_ …and then he got swallowed by the crack…Steve, _the universe itself made her forget him_. She… _she was willing to die_ instead of live in a world without him…yes I know, I looked up the rest of that episode…but I just…Steve…when I fell off the train…when you fell into the river…what if we’d…Jesus, Steve, I can’t… _I just can’t_ …” He heard Steve trying to make reassuring noises over his anxious chattering.

“Hey hey hey, listen, Buck,” Steve said, “first of all, there’s no crack in the universe that’s going to make us forget each other…”

“But the technology…!”

“…was destroyed with that arm of Hydra. Second,” Steve continued, “I’m coming over now. You haven’t sounded this bad in weeks. Third, can I tell you a spoiler if it’ll help you feel better?”

Bucky nodded, even though Steve couldn’t see him. “Yeah, that’d be great.”

“Okay,” said Steve. “Rory comes back.”

Bucky was amazed that he had the mental energy to be puzzled. “O-kay…I’ll question it later. But yeah, c’mon over, I’m so sorry that…”

“Bucky,” Steve interrupted, “whatever you’re about to apologize for, you don’t need to. Just hang tight for a bit, okay? I’ll be right there.”

“I will, thanks.”

They wrapped up, and Bucky went to turn on the lights as he brought up the next episode of a podcast he’d been enjoying to put on as background noise. He scooped up Banks from the towel-cushioned cardboard box he’d fashioned as a cat bed (cheaper and more likely to actually be used than a real cat bed, according to the Internet) and sat back down on the couch to stroke the purring fluffball while listening to the animated rambling of the two podcast hosts. It was nice to have a source of such variety of listening in one show, with topics as mixed as flags and computers and human consciousness and promoting widespread availability of those little plastic sticks you used to plug up the hole in your coffee lid. He did tend to get a bit unsettled when the Australian guy talked about plane crashes with such zeal. Bucky usually skipped those segments when they came up. Thank god the American host wasn’t going on another lecture about how free will was probably an illusion, because Bucky really didn’t think he could handle that right now. It was about one podcast episode later when the intercom finally buzzed. Banks vacated Bucky’s lap as the less-distressed man went to let Steve in.

“Hey,” said Steve as he entered.

“Hi.”

“C’mere.” Bucky welcomed Steve’s warm embrace and the soothing hand rubbing his back, feeling the solidness of touching and knowing that Steve really was there and wasn’t about to vanish into a crack in time and space and make Bucky forget about him for another seventy years, or worse. They moved to lie down on the couch and just held each other for a while, Bucky stroking Steve’s shoulder blade with his right hand while Steve breathed calmly for him and gave Bucky occasional kisses to the forehead. Bucky had half a mind to reach up and try to drape the blanket over them, to just let them sleep in the comfort of each other’s company, but the thought kept nagging at the back of his mind: seriously, how the hell _did_ Rory come back from the dead?

“Y’know,” he said at last, “I kinda still want to watch the next episode.”

Steve had his left hand in Bucky’s hair, giving him fond scratches around his crown. He stopped and patted Bucky’s head. “Ordinarily I’d say you could stop here if you wanted,” he said, “but I actually do really think you should see Vincent and the Doctor. It’s…I dunno how else to put it…it’s a healing episode.”

“Alright,” said Bucky, turning over to set up the next episode. “Let’s do this.”

After the dire straits of the previous story, switching to the subject of a troubled artist in the French countryside occasionally tormented by an invisible space monster was a welcome change for Bucky. He found himself nodding solemnly at Vincent’s talk about how the others in the village treated him horribly because they believed him to be the cause of their problems. Bucky thought back to his days in Bucharest, how that looming sensation followed him everywhere he went: that feeling of _do they know? Do they know what I am? What I was?_ Oh, the number of times he had expected something to be thrown at him, or for a crowd in front of him to suddenly bolt as he approached, or for a distant siren to herald a swarm of armed soldiers with their guns trained on him and ready to finish him off. The fact that the invisible space monster in the episode was, in death, revealed to be a scared, wounded, and lonely creature itself did not help much. But it was in the aftermath of that scene that Bucky began to understand what Steve meant by this being a “healing episode.” For those few days, Vincent didn’t have to face his demons alone. More importantly, he was given the incredible chance to take a trip forward in the TARDIS to see the effect his work would have on future generations; to be reminded that just because you don’t get to see the impact of your time on this earth in your lifetime, it doesn’t mean you didn’t have an impact at all. For a minute, Bucky was worried that the episode had shot itself in the foot with the reveal that the Doctor and Amy’s visit ultimately didn’t prevent Vincent’s suicide, but then the Doctor rolled out the “pile of good things” speech and Bucky started to get sniffle-y again.

“’The good things don’t always soften the bad things, but the bad things don’t always spoil the good things or make them unimportant,’” Bucky repeated once the episode was over. “That’s one hell of a line. Come to think of it, there’ve been a lot of great lines on this show. Maybe that’s my next collage project: a _Doctor Who_ quote wall.”

“I’d love to see it when you’re done,” said Steve. “Oh hey, the sun’s coming up.”

Bucky looked away from the TV and towards the kitchen window where the first rays of dawn were shimmering outside. The start of a new day. “Huh. So it is. Only got three episodes of the season left, I think I’m gonna keep going. You staying or…? You can crash on my bed if you want.”

Steve yawned. “Why don’t I make us some coffee first?” He patted Bucky’s shoulder as he got up from the couch.

“Hope you like espresso, ‘cause that’s all I’ve got,” said Bucky.

They blazed through the rest of the season, musing on the themes of protecting those you love (and using temporary superhuman abilities to do so. “He waited two _thousand_ years for her and you only waited about seventy for me? Jesus, step up your game, Rogers,” Bucky had quipped with a playful elbow to the ribs) and the idea of “if something can be remembered, then it can come back.”

“Wow,” said Bucky at the conclusion. “What d’you think, Steve? Remembering things just…brings them back?”

“Not that literally, that’s for sure,” said Steve. “But…what do memories do other than bring back echoes of events, people, feelings, smells, places?”

“Easy,” said Bucky, stretching his shoulders a bit as though he subconsciously felt the need to physically assert himself as a perfect example of a response to Steve’s question. “Memories inform us. They tell us where we’ve been and how we got here. They give us context for being. I spent decades knowing and remembering nothing but Hydra, and then you showed up in Washington. Things started to come back. I knew that there’d been something to me before Hydra. There were other people I knew…another man I’d been…more context to me that had been blocked out.” He paused thoughtfully, gazing at the blank wall above the TV. A thought flitted by his mind ever so briefly that this was more blank wall space where he could put something up if he wanted to. “What d’you think, Steve?” he said again. “Have I gotten enough context back that I’m who I used to be?”

Steve lowered his eyebrows and took a few moments to answer, presumably searching for the right words. “I think it’s unreasonable to expect that you’d be the exact same James Buchanan Barnes I lived with in Brooklyn and fought with in the war. Like you said, memories inform you. I had faith that enough of the old you would come back that I could look into your face and see the man I loved again, but...” he sighed, “…that doesn’t change what happened in between. But if there was a way to…”

“Steve, don’t,” Bucky interrupted. “I know what you’re going to say, I know you’ve told me about how Wanda can mess with people’s heads and how she could probably use that power to my benefit. But quite frankly, it wouldn’t…it wouldn’t feel right. What right do I have to forget everything that I did? Or…sorry, right…what I was _made_ to do? Or even to feel _better_ about it? What kind of disrespect is that to all the lives I was made to shatter? Besides…” he laced his fingers together and closed his eyes in a very slow blink, curling his mouth up in the faintest of smiles, “…I…think I like what I am now. I’m a man living his own life, and I think that’s all anyone can ask for. I’m someone who’s already given his service to his country, but I know there’s more I can do, and I want to stick around for that day. I’m alive and I want to keep living. I want to stay someone who can give and receive love. And if anything that’s happened to me, good or bad, has helped me become that, I want to remember it.”

Steve took a few moments to respond, eventually lifting a hand and resting it on Bucky’s shoulder. “You’re right, Buck, I’m sorry,” said Steve. “Your mind, your memories, your decision.”

Bucky nodded, turning half his attention to the rest of the room. “Y’know, it’s funny,” he said. “The details I can remember and the ones I can’t. If you gave me a sheet of paper and a pencil, I could probably trace a rough floor plan of our old place. I could tell you where the couch was, where the stove was, where the bed was, but I couldn’t tell you…” his brow furrowed, “…the colors and patterns are things I have trouble with. I _want_ to say the old bed sheets were sky blue, but that’s just because of the ones I have now. I think we had books, too. We must’ve had books.”

“We did have books. Not a lot, but…” Steve turned to look at Bucky’s current bookcase against the wall next to him. “Maybe a shelf or two of what you’ve got there? There wasn’t a lot of time for reading, not with the hours we had to keep to afford rent sometimes.”

“I remember some of the stuff I read, but more vague plot things than actual titles, unless it was one of The Classics,” Bucky continued. “I know a read a bunch of H.G. Wells, I’m pretty sure I read _Frankenstein_ , I _must’ve_ read _Alice in Wonderland_ at some point because I know there was something in there somewhere about a girl going on a goddamn trip. When I first remembered it existed, it took me a while to stop getting it mixed up with _The Wizard of Oz_. If we had any P.G. Wodehouse books, they were definitely yours. You liked them a lot more than me, I remember that. Or at least the Jeeves books. I never really understood what you got out of stories of bored rich guys getting almost-married every few weeks.”

“Honestly, I think it was more the writing than the stories,” said Steve with a light chuckle. “Maybe I’m just a sucker for a good well-worded sentence. Or, in this case, a lot of them in a row.”

Bucky tilted his head with a smile. “I might have to give those another shot,” he said, “because one of them has the only specific sentences I remember from back then.”

Steve’s eyes widened. “You remember actual lines from the books?”

“Just barely,” said Bucky. “I know you got me to read the Jeeves short stories, and there was one…” he closed his eyes, “…I can’t remember the name of the story or which book it was or anything else that happened in the actual plot but…Bertie Wooster and some other guy got stuck on the roof of a gazebo in the middle of a lake or something and they couldn’t get back to the boat because there was an angry swan in the way. So Jeeves has to come save them and…again, I don’t remember the meat of that one paragraph but I know it started ‘every young man starting life ought to know how to cope with an angry swan, so I will briefly relate the proper procedure’ and it ended with ‘that was Jeeves’s method, and I cannot see how it could have been improved upon’.” Bucky turned to look at Steve again, whose eyes were still wide and whose mouth was slightly open in pleasant surprise.

“Oh my god,” he said with the slightest of pauses. “I remember that. I remember you reading that. I was tidying up the kitchen and you were laughing your ass off in the next room and suddenly you rushed in with the book and yelled ‘STEVE, I’VE JUST…’”

“’…FOUND THE FUNNIEST SHIT I’VE EVER READ IN MY LIFE’,” they finished in unison.

“Yeah,” Steve continued. “You tried doing a dramatic reading of it, but you barely got to the end before you were on the floor with one hand over your stomach and the other slapping the rug.”

Bucky grinned. “Ohhh man, when the hell was the last time I found something that funny?”

“You know they made a TV show out of that?” said Steve.

“Wait, out of the Jeeves books?”

“Yeah, it’s just called _Jeeves and Wooster_. I haven’t seen it yet, but I’d like to.”

“Well then,” said Bucky, leaning back into the couch, “I bet I know what we’re watching after I catch up on _Doctor Who_.”

* * *

 

Bucky: [Holy shit]

Bucky: [Hoooooooooly shit]

Bucky: [Steve, I just realized something about season 9.]

Bucky: [That was us. That was basically us.]

Steve: [It…wait]

Bucky: [I mean, think about it:]

Bucky: [There’s a protagonist and his best friend who mean the universe to each other and fight evil together]

Bucky: [And one day the protagonist has to watch his best friend die, shortly before he himself gets agelessly aged by a lot]

Bucky: [And then the protagonist learns there might be a way to get his friend back, so he goes through hell and high water to make it happen, maybe crossing a few lines along the way]

Bucky: [And when the protagonist finally gets his friend back, something happens to separate them again.]

Bucky: [Plus there’s forced memory loss and a part where one of them tries to kill the other because they don’t recognize them.]

Steve: [You know, it’s freaky]

Steve: [I feel like I thought that too when I first watched it, but I hadn’t put it into words like that.]

Bucky: [I think you and I won out in the long run, didn’t we?]

Steve: [Yeah, we did. We absolutely did.]

Steve: [Wait, what’s with this me being “the protagonist”? This isn’t a movie of my life, Buck.]

Bucky: [Yeah, but it fit the metaphor.]

Steve: [Maybe you should stick that somewhere on your quote wall: “I am the protagonist of my own story.”]

Bucky: [That’s a thought. I’ve already got the rest of it laid out though.]

Bucky: [Maybe it’s just because we just watched it earlier this week and it’s still fresh in my head, but I’m giving a really good space to that one line about]

Bucky: [“Never be cruel and never be cowardly, and if you ever are, always make amends.”]

Bucky: [I only hope I can achieve that someday.]

Steve: [You do tend to apologize a lot these days.]

Bucky: [If it’s a coping mechanism, let’s just say it works for me and leave it at that.]

Steve: [Hey, what works for you that isn’t hurting yourself, works for me.]

Bucky: [Sounds fair. Thank you.]

Steve: [Speaking of “leaving it at that,” have you seen that Christmas special with River Song yet?]

Bucky: [RIGHT, THAT. NO I HAVEN’T, LET ME FIX THAT.]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As added self-indulgence: for the curious, the podcast that Bucky's listening to (and that I'm actually listening to as I fix the formatting on this post) is my personal favorite podcast, [Hello Internet](http://www.hellointernet.fm/). It's a good mashup of in-depth discussions about technology in a changing world and occasional book and movie reviews and build-ups of in-jokes and ramblings about watches and buildings and flags.
> 
> Also, The Return of Doctor Mysterio aired between my writing this chapter and my posting it. I'll probably do Bucky and Steve's reaction to that later because holy shit, that was EXACTLY the Doctor Who episode I needed to see after a good Marvel year.


	6. Share: The Prank War Chapter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam has to crash with Bucky for a bit. Things go just about how you'd expect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a long time coming, and I'm so sorry for the wait. But I'm glad to be back! The alternate title for this could easily be The Shenanigans Chapter, so if you like Bucky and Sam attempting to contain their combined passive-aggression under one roof: this one's for you. Thanks again to miss-slothrop on Tumblr for beta-reading!
> 
> Chapter-specific tags: drunkenness, roommates, prank wars, Sam Wilson is So Done (I'm so glad this was apparently already a tag), cooking, Bucky Barnes's Trigger Words

**Share**

Bucky was awakened by the ringing of his phone, but not by an alarm tone. Steve was calling him.

“G’morning?” Bucky mumbled as he started propping himself up in bed.

“Afternoon, actually,” said Steve.

“Oh. Wait, what time is it?”

“’Bout a quarter to one.”

Bucky sighed, with sarcasm at first. “Fantastic. Actually, wait, that means I got a full eight hours for once last night. What _have_ I done to deserve such riches?”

“Ehh, not so fast, I’m afraid,” said Steve. “That’s what I called about: you’re gonna have company for a little bit.”

Bucky’s face narrowed in apprehension. “Okay…what company, and how ‘little’ of ‘a bit’?”

“Sam,” said Steve, “for three nights.”

Bucky closed his eyes and breathed out a hiss through his nose. “And we’re doing this sleepover at my place because…?”

“It’s a bit of an emergency, actually,” said Steve. “A pipe burst at his place, so they’re dealing with both minor flooding and no running water. Ideally, I’d let him stay at my place, but I’m still out of town and can’t give him keys.” Bucky was about to ask what happened to the spare keys that Steve always used to keep under a brick back in the day, but then he remembered that, in the interest of security, Steve didn’t do that anymore. None of them did. “I asked Natasha but she’s being, well, characteristically vague, so…I’m sorry, Buck, I know you and Sam have a, um, bumpy relationship, but maybe this could be a…”

Part of Bucky silently prayed that Steve was not about to use the phrase “bonding experience.”

“…bonding experience.”

Oh well.

“So, sounds like I don’t really have a choice, here, do I?” said Bucky, trying and failing not to sound bitter. He of all people knew that utilities failed all the time and Sam needing a place to crash because of a busted pipe wasn’t anyone’s fault.

“It’s only for a few days,” said Steve, “and again, I’m so sorry, but I think you guys’ll be fine. I have faith in both of you.”

“Heh,” Bucky half-scoffed. “Can I borrow a little bit of that faith? That might make me feel better.”

“You don’t have any?”

Bucky shrugged with a half-hearted hum, which seemed to be the over-the-phone equivalent of a shrug these days. “I’ve got some, but I might need a bit more.”

“Well, I’ll see if I can send you some before Sam gets there.”

“Right, what’s his ETA?”

“He’ll probably be there in about an hour.”

Bucky looked down at himself. “I guess I’d better put some pants on, then.”

“I expect he’d appreciate that. You take care!”

“Thanks, I’ll try. See ya.” Bucky hung up and grumbled for a few moments before his phone pinged again.

Steve: [Some faith. Hope it helps <3]

Another ping. Bucky snorted through his grin. Yes, surely an angel emoji from his boyfriend would help him through four whole days of housing Sam “I won’t move my seat up for you but I’ll tag-team the Spider-Kid with you and I’m gonna help you keep your cat but I still kinda hate you” Wilson.

Surely.

* * *

 

Bucky had just finished working his way through a lengthy playlist of recommended and notable music that the others had compiled, mostly from Sam and Natasha with annotations from Steve about particular songs or artists that he thought Bucky would especially like. It went in chronological order from 1945 up to the present and covered a bit of everything from ‘50s rock to ‘80s synth to ‘90s hip-hop, with assorted miscellany like popular movie or stage musical soundtracks thrown in. With company coming, Bucky figured that now was as good a time as any to pick up the front of the apartment a bit. This fortunately didn’t involve much more than pitching a few beer bottles, wiping down various surfaces, running the vacuum, and scrubbing out everything in the sink that he hadn’t been in the mood to take care of the night before, but he still relished the excuse to put on some music while he worked.

He pulled up the ‘80s section of his digital music library on his laptop and set it to shuffle, cleaning his way through a couple Michael Jackson hits and that one Styx song about the robot before Never Gonna Give You Up came on. Bucky couldn’t explain why he found this song so catchy, but the only annotation Natasha had left on it was, “This was a popular Internet meme.” “Meme” was a new-ish word, and Bucky had come to understand that it was a concept or piece of culture that was passed down from generation to generation, as opposed to genes that were passed down through generations through biology. How exactly something could be a “meme” on the Internet when the World Wide Web had only been around for about one generation was something he was still figuring out. Memes were an aspect of 21st century life that he was approaching with caution, since his first few ventures into researching where the hell that frog on a unicycle came from or why that cat was asking if it could “has cheezburger” had gotten very strange and very confusing very fast.

Well, if Never Gonna Give You Up had been a popular Internet meme, then that must mean that a lot of people loved the song, right? Bucky supposed so as he set the program to Single Repeat on the Rick Astley track. In the middle of the third playthrough, the intercom buzzed.

“Hello?”

“Congratulations, your Wilson has arrived.”

“Okay, come on up.”

Sam arrived at the door a minute later, sporting a large backpack and a disgruntled expression.

“Wow, seriously?” he said, gesturing in the general direction of the source of the music. “I just get here and you’re already Rickrolling me?”

Bucky blinked, then looked at his laptop and back. “What’s ‘Rickrolling’? I just really like this song.”

* * *

 

“Alright Mr. Catch Up On the Classics, have I got something for you tonight,” Sam announced later, withdrawing a DVD from his bag with the tiniest of flourishes. “You heard of _2001: A Space Odyssey_?”

Bucky looked up from his book, the complete edition of _Angels in America_. It was one hell of a read, but he’d reached another scene with the utterly detestable Roy Cohn and was ready for a movie break. Plus, as much as he enjoyed having a purring and contented Banks in his lap while he read, such a presence tended to restrict movement and encourage leg cramps in the wrong position. “Sounds familiar. It’s sci-fi, right?”

“This is _The_ sci-fi,” said Sam, crossing around to face Bucky where he lay back on the couch. “This is space travel before we hit the moon. This is the most iconic artificial intelligence character ever put to film,” Sam periodically raised his eyebrows for emphasis in a way that struck Bucky as being a hint of feigned enthusiasm, but for now he chose to give his guest the benefit of the doubt. “This is the story of mankind itself: of life, the universe, and everything.”

Bucky furrowed his brow. “I thought _Life, the Universe, and Everything_ was one of the _Hitchhiker’s Guide_ books?”

“Okay, that too, but you know what I mean.”

Bucky didn’t know what he meant, but he figured he was about to find out. “Alright then, pop it in.”

“Might wanna grab us a six-pack or two first,” said Sam, nodding his head in the direction of the fridge as he cracked open the DVD case. “We’re gonna need ‘em.”

As eager as Bucky was to try out the IPA he’d picked up the day before, Sam’s sentiment did not fill him with confidence. The grand and bombastic opening shot of the movie, however, did. The following scene proceeded to not. Bucky wondered if this was going to be a pattern.

“Is the movie going to actually start anytime soon?” he asked after significantly more minutes than he expected watching ancient apes roam around doing their thing.

“This is the start of nothing less than the human race itself,” Sam replied, putting down his first empty bottle of the evening. “Majesty like this can take as long as it needs.”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t expecting the whole of human history in real time,” said Bucky, raising the last of his own bottle to his lips and tilting his head back to get it all down. In the few seconds it had taken to finish it off, the movie had suddenly jumped into space. Finally, mercifully, a spaceship and the prospect of actual people talking to each other. “I guess I stand corrected,” Bucky confessed. Within a few minutes, however, he was reaching for another beer. The film droned on and on and on with sparse moments of actual interaction and plot progression intercut by long spans of Nothing or Basically Nothing. Bucky found himself slipping in and out of consciousness as he half wondered if it was rude to fall asleep during a guest’s movie but oh wait Sam seemed to be asleep himself which made it okay and _oh wow that’s a lot of flashing colors great Barnes now you’re hallucinating too_.

Bucky suddenly snapped awake, thankfully not in the aftermath of another nightmare but in that weird sense of awareness that your subconscious sometimes gets when it thinks you need to be somewhere. But he didn’t. He was still on his couch and the TV was still on, although the movie had long since ended. There was a weight on his shoulder and…oh, _that’s_ where Sam had fallen asleep. Forget sleeping cats in your lap, how were you supposed to deal with a giant bird that conks out on top of you? As gingerly as he could, Bucky extricated himself from Sam’s “perch” and laid the man lengthwise on the couch, pulling the blanket over him. Bucky turned the TV and remaining lights off and checked the time. 3:12 AM. Plenty of time to get in a few hours in his own bed before the next day proper beckoned.

* * *

 

Sam was still asleep when Bucky came out front the next morning. This was a minor inconvenience only in the sense that Bucky was really hungry Right Now but still had an interest in being a good host and figured he might as well make breakfast for both of them, but didn’t want to wake Sam up to ask him what he wanted. Well, Bucky’s house, Bucky’s rules. Also, Bucky’s kitchen, and it had a fridge full of recently-purchased eggs, cheese, bacon, scallions, and other goodies.

_Omelets it is, then._

As everything sizzled over the stove, Bucky heard the sounds of stirring from the couch behind him followed by the unmistakable low groans of a passed-out Avenger returning to the world of the living. He turned around to see Sam slowly lifting himself off the couch and giving a little attention to a curious Banks with a faint, “Hey, lil’ fella.”

“Morning, Dave,” Bucky called over the crackling of increasingly-done breakfast, forgetting to emulate a HAL 9000 voice.

“Name’s not Dave…oh wait, very funny,” Sam called back, tossing the blanket off and rubbing his face for a moment before turning his attention back to Banks. “Speakin’ of names, I’m a little surprised you didn’t name this guy ‘T’Challa’.”

“I thought about it, actually,” Bucky replied as he went back to flipping the omelets. “I owe that man more than I have words for. Of course then I realized, wait: is it really a good idea to name a _house pet_ after a) the guy who fixed the worst possible part of your brain and b) the king of the most quietly powerful nation in the world?” Bucky felt a familiar nuzzling at his ankles and looked down to see Banks winding around him affectionately. He bent down to scratch the begging kitty behind the ears. “And I say that with love, Banks. You are a house pet but you are also my friend and a welcome presence in this apartment. Here, you want some bacon bits?” Bucky minced a bit of greasy meat from the bacon plate and sprinkled it on the remains of Banks’ breakfast in the food bowl.

“Which reminds me,” said Sam, getting up and digging through his bag for some fresh clothes, “how’s the ESA process going?”

“Slowly but surely,” said Bucky. “Still don’t have the final paperwork. And because the universe is weird like that, it’s actually taking longer than it took to get me this place. Although I imagine that being a person who legally doesn’t—or shouldn’t—exist is throwing a bit of a wrench in the works. Or at least a banana peel. Those would probably gunk something up but they’re mushy and probably wouldn’t last too long in a…wait, shit, that metaphor got away from me. Anyway, omelets should be done in…two minutes.”

“Sweet, I can go change,” said Sam. Bucky had half a mind to go “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, Dave,” but he wasn’t sure if that had been an actual line from the movie or just his movie-influenced dreams/visions/hallucinations/whatever from the night before. Also there probably weren’t enough seconds to get the joke out before Sam asked, “Where’s your bathroom?”

Bucky turned his head around and pointed to the back of the apartment. “On your right.” Sam gave him a thumbs-up and retreated to put on that day’s outfit as Bucky returned his attention to the stove to give the omelets one last flip.

As Bucky was loading the plates, three seconds before Sam reemerged from the bathroom, Bucky sneezed rather violently.

He turned around with the plates as Sam returned and just barely caught a glimpse of the wing-man’s face quickly shifting from a narrowed face to a neutral expression.

“Please tell me that’s not birdseed,” Sam half-grumbled as he sat down at the kitchen island, pointing at the little kernels of off-white that peppered his omelet.

“They’re pine nuts,” Bucky replied after a mildy-exasperated half-pause, sitting down exactly across from him. “Nat took me out for brunch last week and they had them in this frittata we got. Figured it might to fun to try them in some other egg dishes. That was the last of them, though, but there’s extra cheese, bacon, and scallions if you wanna add more of that.”

Sam squinted. “Here’s a question,” he said, pointing at Bucky’s left side. “You can use that thing as a bottle opener, could you use it as a cheese grater?”

Bucky’s mouth fell open slightly as he raised a right-side finger, prepared to retort with “What? No, of course not!” But then he actually stopped and thought about it. He closed his mouth and put his finger down. “Conceivably, yes? But then I’d have a bunch of leftover cheese gunk to clean out of my arm and I _really_ don’t want to have to do that.”

“Word,” said Sam, picking up his fork. Bucky picked up his own fork, but waited for Sam to take the first bite; a chef’s pause for the diner’s seal of approval.

Sam Wilson did not take the first bite. His fork hovered and his brow furrowed again. Forward inched the fork towards the omelet, then away, then towards, then away. Bucky sat there, watching him, motionless. Wondering.

“Something wrong, Wilson?” he asked.

“Hmm? Oh, no, it’s just…hot. I’m waiting for it to cool down.”

“Oh, okay, yeah, fair enough.”

“You go ahead, I bet your super-soldier mouth is fireproof.”

“Not really. And please, you first, I insist.”

“Oh you ‘insist’, do you?”

“Yes, I ‘insist’. You’re the guest.”

Sam was scrutinizing Bucky’s plate now, gears appearing to turn in his head. He was silent again, eyes narrow and unblinking. Bucky stared intently at Sam, counting the quiet seconds well into the double digits before blowing gently on his fork and moving it down towards his own plate.

“Wait.” Sam held up his be-forked hand, stopping Bucky’s about three inches from the omelet.

“What?”

Sam pointed with his fork at Bucky’s still un-skewered omelet. “Yours has more pine nuts than mine.”

“Maybe.”

“So?”

“Are you asking for my omelet, Sam?”

“Maybe.” Sam’s next question came out like unsweetened lemonade. “You okay with switching plates?”

It was Bucky’s brow’s turn to furrow. “…Sure.”

They picked up their respective plates in their right hands, reached them over to the center of the kitchen island, took the other’s plate in their left hands, and set their new breakfasts down in front of them. Up came the forks again, and so returned the furrowed brows and narrowed eyes. Bucky gazed intently at formerly-his and now-Sam’s omelet, waiting for the fork to lift a bite and begin the proceedings proper. But no go. His eyes trailed up to see Sam lifting his head in the exact same way, slowly drawing his gaze from the food to the other man’s eyes. Cool dark met cloudy gray. Sam’s expression betrayed nothing but focus, didn’t dare break contact with Bucky except for the most fleeting of glances at the forks finally being made to do their jobs. Both laden with warm egg, cheese, bacon, scallions, and the ever-controversial pine nuts. The moments ticked by with each one bringing the fateful first bites another centimeter closer to the slowly opening mouths of the two men blessed with only so much patience. Those first waiting breaths wafted over the approaching forkfuls and then there was no turning back.

Two bites of omelet, two forks, into two mouths. Lips closed, teeth chewed.

Bucky swallowed.

“I didn’t sneeze on your omelet.”

Sam slammed his fork on the table with a frustrated clatter.

“ _Then what the hell was all THAT for?!_ ”

The façade finally folded and Bucky’s classic smirk returned. “Honestly, the look on your face was _absolutely_ priceless.”

Any distinguishable extreme expression vanished from Sam’s face and left him blank. Just…blank. Looking back on it later, Bucky assumed that Sam was actively trying to deny him any further facial satisfaction, but his attempt failed. Bucky still thought this was hilarious.

“Hang on, wait wait wait, hold that.” Bucky quickly leaned back through a few more giggles to grab his Polaroid off the coat hook behind him and snapped a photo of a not-terribly-happy Sam and his plate of thankfully-not-garnished-with-sneeze omelet.

* * *

 

Bucky was already apprehensive about leaving Sam alone at his place while he went out to get more cat food and litter for Banks. It was all he could do to not bolt straight back, maybe trailing a can or two behind him, when he received a text from Sam that read [I’m returning the favor tonight. Can I use your chicken?]. Fast-walking was a perfectly acceptable substitute, though. He burst in through the front door of the apartment and was promptly greeted with a delightfully mouth-watering smell. Sam was cooking, and Bucky was quite torn. _Oh, this is a nice thing he’s doing. He could’ve gone out and gotten his own chicken to use instead of taking mine, though. Okay, stop, easy Barnes, he’s doing you a favor, you did pull kind of a dick move this morning and he_ is _a guest, the least you can do is let him raid your meat. I mean fridge. Shit. That came out wrong._

“Something smells very barbeque-y,” Bucky finally announced aloud, putting the bag of cat food and the box of litter down.

“You don’t grow up in the Wilson household without learning twenty different ways to do up meat,” said Sam. “And I’ve done enough grills and cookouts and barbeques in my day. You do anything special with the skins in this place?”

Bucky went to sit down on the couch, strongly suppressing the urge to make some snide pun about “getting up in his grill” (that was a thing people said in the 21st century to express annoyance, right?), before Banks trotted over to greet him and pacified the ex-Winter Soldier for a little while longer. “Sorry cats can’t have barbeque sauce, buddy,” he said, scratching the cat behind the ears. “You want some of Sam’s leftover chicken skins later? Meow once for ‘yes’ and bite my wrist for ‘no’.”

“Prrrrr…prrrrr…”

“No? Nothing?” Bucky moved his fingers to scratch Banks under the chin. “You’d rather have the boring canned stuff I always get you?”

“Maow!”

“Smart guy,” Sam quipped.

“Isn’t he, though?” Bucky beamed, holding up his hand. “High five, Banks.”

Banks, to Bucky’s amazement, raised a single paw and put it against Bucky’s palm. Bucky’s eyes went wide and his jaw dropped.

“Sam,” he barked, “SAM LOOK AT THIS!”

Sam turned around and didn’t change his expression, eyebrows slanted back and appearing insufficiently impressed. “Oh nice,” he muttered, turning back to the meat in the grill pan.

“No no no, Sam, get the Polaroid, I need this for the album!” Bucky blurted out, trying to level his voice so as not to spook Banks, but too late. Banks had already put his paw down and was now climbing into Bucky’s lap to crawl up his chest slightly and start kneading at his shirt with ever-prickly kitty claws. Bucky sighed. Maybe he’d have to catch that shot some other time. Sam turned around again for another moment.

“That’s what phone cameras are for, man,” he half-scolded. “Gimme another five minutes and food should be done by the time your cat’s done making bread.” Again, Bucky was tempted to crack a “buns” joke for about half a second before realizing that was the wrong part of the body. He opted instead for pulling out his phone and trawling around online for a bit.

“Hey Sam,” Bucky quipped a few minutes later, “how the hell do you make that smirk emoticon? It looks like you need parentheses for the eyebrows, but how do you get them on top?”

“The hell’re you talking about?” Sam asked, turning around.

“This thing,” said Bucky, holding up his phone and pointing to the ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) that prefaced a post on a message board. Sam came around to the couch to take a closer look.

“Oh,” he said. “That’s Lenny Face.”

Bucky squinted. “’Lenny Face’? Who’s ‘Lenny’?”

“No one, it’s just an Internet thing,” said Sam. “Can’t really type it out on regular keys, though. You need to find it somewhere else and copy-paste it.”

“Huh,” said Bucky, still squinting at the strange typographical expression. “Is it one of those ‘memes’? Does it mean anything special, or is it just a smirk?”

“Basically, yeah,” said Sam, returning to the stove to finish the chicken. “It’s just a smirk.”

“Noted.”

Dinner looked suspiciously un-suspicious. There was grilled chicken with Bucky’s favorite barbeque sauce and deli-bought coleslaw on the side. A beer for Bucky, a decaf coffee for Sam. Bucky gazed at the meal with more degrees of trepidation than he would like. Sam had to have _something_ up his sleeve after that stunt with the “sneeze” omelets that morning, right? Well, if he wanted to play this game, there wasn’t much room to turn back now, was there?

“Looks good,” said Bucky, trying to sound not _too_ impressed with the frankly delectable smells coming off the meat.

“Pleasure,” Sam answered, holding up his coffee mug. “Cheers.” They clinked their drinks together honoring…something? Their tetchy friendship? Their prowess as Men of the Kitchen? A truce? Whatever. Bucky was hungry. He cut off a sizeable chunk of chicken breast and held it up to his nose for the briefest of sniffs. Yup, still barbeque sauce. He threw a glance across the kitchen island at Sam, who had also skewered his first bite and was holding it in front of his face. And so history repeated itself, it seemed. Well, if Sam was willing to call Bucky’s bluff that morning, then Bucky was willing to call Sam’s. Bucky took a bite.

What was that comment Sam had made earlier about super soldier mouths being fireproof? Because temperature was one thing but _dear sweet Jesus what was this_. Growing up during the Depression hadn’t really exposed Bucky to much spicy food, and neither had his time in Romania when his priorities were much different and experimenting in the kitchen wasn’t something he’d been particularly keen on. Living in 21 st century New York City certainly made spice more accessible, and Bucky was gradually developing a taste for Mexican and Indian cuisine, but whatever peppers he’d had before were garnish compared to whatever was searing his tongue at that moment. Feeling his eyes leaking slightly, he darted up and seized one of his tallest glasses from the cupboard, nearly tore the sink tap off in his rush to fill it with water, and chugged it all in seconds.

“James Buchanan Barnes,” Sam declared as he pulled a red bottle out of his bag while Bucky caught his breath, “meet Sriracha sauce: staple of every college white boy’s mini-fridge and bane of sensitive taste buds everywhere.”

Bucky wheeled on him. “Okay, I know I’m not someone who’s allowed to say ‘what did I do to deserve that’ but… _ouch_.”

“That,” said Sam, pointing at Bucky with the sauce bottle, “was for the ‘sneeze’ omelets.”

“That,” Bucky retorted, starting to see a pattern falling into place, “was for your stupid weird movie.”

“ _That_ ,” said Sam, “was for Rickrolling me.”

“ _That_ ,” Bucky began, his tone dropping from defensive to sheepish a lot more quickly than he was expecting, “…was an accident.”

“Man, listen,” Sam half-grumbled, “we’ve both got two strikes and about two more days together, we sure we wanna keep this up?” Once again, Bucky was having trouble getting a read on Sam’s face. The turn of his eyebrows suggested resignation but the turn of his mouth suggested a hint of triumph. Well, Sam wasn’t wrong. As reluctant as Bucky was to let Sam have the last laugh, and especially after something that had caused him a bit of actual pain, they did seem to be at a good place to call it even. And quite frankly, if Sam had taken this step, Bucky wasn’t too keen to find out what other pranks the Falcon had up his sleeve. Maybe some other time. But not in Bucky’s apartment.

“I guess,” he said.

“Besides,” Sam continued, “there’s _nobody_ I know who _actually_ enjoys Never Gonna Give You Up _unironically_.”

“Okay, I take it back.” 

* * *

 

Bucky had had worse days. There were his “non-functional days” where he had nothing in him to do anything beyond feeding Banks and _maybe_ putting some clothes on and _maybe_ eating _one_ meal or _one_ snack. There were days that followed some of the absolute worst of his nightmares, where his anxiety carried over into the light of day (even more than usual: internal screaming was not just limited to the night, after all) and his beloved cat could only do so much and he couldn’t stand to be without human companionship, so Steve usually came over and did his best to help anchor him while Bucky grounded himself in Steve’s cozy embrace. But Sam’s third day was different. One of the advantages (or disadvantages?) of returning to civilian life after decades of hell was reacclimatizing to minor inconveniences and regaining the ability to be annoyed by the mundane again: subway delays because of “train traffic ahead of us (we apologize for any inconvenience),” making toast only to discover that you’re out of butter, going for a morning run when it’s humid as all hell outside, and so on. Sometimes you get particularly unlucky and a bunch of little things pile up over the course of one day. So was the case on this day, which initially only had one remotely notable interaction between the two unexpected temporary roommates.

Bucky: [So I’ve been trying to figure out some of this memetic music on the playlist you guys sent.]

Bucky: [Some of it makes sense, like Double Rainbow was just turning some guy’s nature vlog into a song, and Friday is just hilariously awful…]

Bucky: [But then there’s What Does the Fox Say]

Bucky: [What. What even is this song.]

Bucky: [Do they honestly think that foxes make these sounds at all? What are half of them even supposed to be??]

Bucky: [CAN THEY JUST NOT JUST GOOGLE THIS STUFF???]

Bucky: [And yes I saw the music video and I’m not sure if that made it make more or less sense.]

Sam: [*shrug*]

Bucky: [But of course this all begs the question:]

Bucky: [What Does the Falcon Say?]

Sam: [Oh my god]

Sam: [I’m not even going to dignify that with a response.]

Bucky: [Falcon says “I’m not even going to dignify that with a response,” apparently.]

Sam: […I walked right fukin into that didn’t I]

Bucky had already had a not-so-great night of sleep the night before, so he was only running on about three (non-consecutive) hours when he was faced with rain making the leaves slippery but there was a lull in the rain so he went out for a long walk but then the rain started again and he realized he’d forgotten his umbrella but he didn’t want to head back just yet because he still had to go pick up stuff for the apartment that he couldn’t get while laden with cat supplies the day before and now a chunk of his coupons had expired and the grocery store was out of his favorite yogurt and breakfast burritos _again_ and on a normal day he could just walk back but the rain had gotten worse and he’d felt the beginnings of a split wearing through the sole of one shoe and the residual dampness from the soaking sidewalk started to seep into his sock and he didn’t want to walk with this for seven whole blocks so he figured _sure I’ll pay nearly three dollars for the bus to take me two stops_ which he wondered if it was worth it when the bus took the better part of fifteen minutes to show up and he could’ve been back sooner but significantly wetter and was that really worth it in the end?

He arrived back at the apartment and greeted a welcoming Banks before stripping off his wet clothes, putting his groceries away, and going down for a nap. A nap from which he awoke with an unexpected and highly unwelcome headache: the type of acute headache that made him cautious about taking any painkillers for it for fear of running the risk that the pills on his tongue would trigger a gag reflex and make him vomit everything up immediately, thus rendering the medicine effectively moot. Well, he’d put up with far worse pain, he could put up with this. He lay in the semi-darkness of his room, listening to another hour of the _Hitchhiker’s Guide_ radio drama series, before finally rising to put on some dry clothes and make a couple grilled cheese sandwiches. Sam returned just as he took the last bite.

“Damn, God’s taking one hell of a piss today,” he said as Bucky let him in. “Were you out in that?”

“Yeah, for an hour or so,” Bucky grumbled, “which was about an hour or so too many. But I needed some groceries. Oh, and I got more beer.”

“Nice,” said Sam, hanging up his coat. “Can you grab me one, or three? I need to unsee some shit from _Ripley’s_ today.”

“I thought Nat was dragging you to see the Morbid Anatomy Museum?”

“Same difference.”

“They’re not even in the same…whatever.”

Bucky and Sam sat down on the couch, beers in hand, caps popped, with the rest of a six-pack on the coffee table in front of them. Bucky took a swig first and Sam followed suit almost immediately. Some side-eyeing, and the swigs turned into chugs. More chugging. Bucky opened his eyes a bit more and realized that Sam was still watching him. Bucky lowered his bottle.

“This doesn’t have to be a conte…”

“Yes it does.”

“Okay.”

Bottles empty, bottles down. Round two. By the time they were on their second six-pack, Sam’s speech was starting to slur and Bucky had either cured his headache or completely forgotten that he had one in the first place.

“Y’know what my problem is?” Sam mumbled, drumming his fingers lightly on the neck of his bottle. “I get, like, _no_ chances to be selfish. I’m always the wingman, the shoulder to cry on, the convenient safehouse when everything’s goin’ to shit…like…dammit, where the hell’s _my_ wingman? Where’s _my_ safehouse? I’ve spent all this time looking after you guys, who the hell’s looking after me?”

“I dunno, you look like you’re managing yourself just fine,” Bucky replied, idly twirling an empty bottle in his metal fingers.

“’Look like…’, do you even look at me, though?” Sam asked, throwing Bucky what he thought was yet another side-eye but this time seemed…less accusatory, more sincere. Bucky stopped to think about that for a moment.

“I dunno,” he said. “Do you want me to?”

Sam shrugged loosely. “Mmmight be nice. Maybe I just want more people to look at me. Anyway, that’s my problem, what’s your problem?”

Bucky pursed his lips, not sure if Sam was being sarcastic or drunk. He decided to roll with the first option and answered in turn: “Well, it all started back in 1944…let’s just say I fell down and got hurt really bad.” Down…down…wait, he was forgetting something… “Crap, I forgot to get my mail today. Hang on, be right back…and I think you’ve had enough.” Bucky stood up and reached over to pick up the remains of the six-pack, carrying them over to the kitchenette and setting them down on the countertop. Mail was always about 95% junk, random flyers and promotions from stores he’d shopped at once and now wouldn’t leave him alone. Some offers he kept for posterity, just on the off chance. The big thing he kept his eye out for were the occasional online purchases and important notices from the building.

It was the red text that caught his eye first, big and bold. He read it. He read it again. Then he checked the address to see if it was in the wrong mailbox because this couldn’t _possibly_ be for him. The text stamped on the front of the envelope read “EVICTION NOTICE.” Ignoring the other mail, he tore the offending letter open and read.

Banks. They were trying to have him thrown out because of Banks. No pets allowed, so either Banks went, or they both went. No. Banks had been nothing but a positive influence on Bucky’s life since he took him in. He was the small bit of constant comfort around when he was otherwise alone: the quietly purring bundle at the end of his bed when nights were restless, the warm body on his lap while he read or watched TV, the friend welcoming him home every time he went out. Bucky knew that once Banks’ registration as an Emotional Support Animal was complete, he was supposed to be protected by law from stuff like this. But it wasn’t complete, and Bucky’s own legal status was about as murky as a sewage tunnel full of tear gas. _We can fix this. We’re gonna fix this. It’s going to be fine. There’s a solution here._ But unfortunately that reassurance only did so much. The solution existed but it hadn’t actually _happened_ yet, and until it did, everything about Bucky’s newfound domestic safety felt in flux. And that made his stomach churn. He clenched the letter in his metal hand, so as to leave his right hand free to slam the mailbox door shut with less possibility of ripping it off its hinges, and trudged back upstairs. Help with Banks-related bureaucracy was usually Sam’s department, but he probably wasn’t in the best shape to have this thrown at him. Bucky needed to call and let Steve and Natasha know about this as soon as possible, but first he really needed another drink.

“Hey, c’n you grab me another one?” Sam grumbled at him as he reentered the apartment.

Bucky slapped the notice on the kitchen island, cracked open another bottle, and grumbled, “You can get it yourself.” There was about a minute’s pause while Bucky chugged down his nth beer of the evening, nearly dropping it when he turned around to see Sam looking at something from his phone and reading out a variant of a mercifully defunct set of words.

“Longing, rusted, seventeen, daybreak, furnace, nine, benign, homecoming, one, freight car.” A second silence hung in the air like both mens’ beer breath. Sam continued, “That means you gotta do what I tell you, right?”

Bucky leered, bottle poised precariously in his metal hand. “Even if it still did, it only works in Russian. Or do they not teach Russian at Bird School?”

“Sorry,” Sam said, sticking his phone back into his pocket, “it conflicted with my Not Being a Prick class.”

“Which you presumably failed.”

“Look who’s talking, Mr. Sneeze Omelet.”

“Birdbrain.”

“Swiss cheese brain.”

“Easy target.”

“Cheap shot.”

“Circus reject.”

“Freakshow.”

“Third-rate wingman.”

Sam had a go at straightening himself and standing up. “Literally a terrorist.”

Bucky strode forward and closed most of the rest of the gap between them. “Dead weight to the Avengers.”

“Steve Rogers’ big mistake.”

Bucky’s face blanched. “Leave Steve out of this, and take that back,” he growled.

Sam did not look in any state to apologize. “ _Listen_. I’ve stuck my neck out for that guy more times than I can count, and who was always there giving me a hard time? You. And you may be back on the straight ‘n narrow now, but I’ve almost _died_ because of you and _Christ alive_ that is _not_ an easy first impression to shake. And where’s this all gotten me? A lay-low life with damn near nothing left of what I had all because I dropped everything to help Steve save _your_ ass. It’s got me _here_ , in _this shit-hole_ , with _you_.

Bucky hadn’t felt his muscles tighten like this outside of a workout in months. “Well if you hate it here so much then _why don’t you just LEAVE?_ ” he howled.

“And go _where?_ ” Sam yelled back.

“ _Just…_ ” Bucky began, but through the haze of anger and alcohol, his words were failing him. The bottle in his left hand finally exploded under the pressure. His mind quickly regressing to the most childlike of reactions, Bucky let out one final wordless scream and stormed off to his bedroom, slamming the door behind him. There was a crack of wood splintering as Banks awoke with a start, padding across to the edge of the bed and gazing up at Bucky with inquisitive green eyes.

“Maow?”

“ _Don’t give me that!_ ” Bucky bellowed as Banks flinched at the outburst, tail bristling and ears folding back. “ _I didn’t ask him to come here! I did NOT give anyone PERMISSION for him to be dropped on me like that! Not even Steve! What happened to me having a choice? What happened to this being MY place? This is MY. PLACE._ This is…” he started to trail off, breath coming in ragged. Banks’ ears faced frontwards again, his fur slowly settling again. “…This is _my_ place…oh Banks…I didn’t invite you here either, you just barged in…” Bucky could feel his face falling, throat tightening just a little bit. “But you’re…you’re a cat, not a person. You don’t have to…” Bucky found his eyes wandering across his walls and as he spoke they fell upon the _Doctor Who_ quote board that he’d put together and hung above his dresser. He didn’t actually put a whole lot of stock in the idea of those motivational posters that just had a word, an inspiring quote, and a nice stock photo in the center. But this poster came with context. Stories. “You know that in nine hundred years of time and space, I’ve never met anybody who wasn’t important before.” “Just this once, everybody lives!”

And across the bottom right-hand corner: “Never be cruel and never be cowardly, and if you ever are, always make amends.”

_Never cruel…always make amends._

“Shit,” Bucky whispered with a sting in his eyes, raising a hand to his face “ _Shit_.” He took several deep breaths, scrunched his face one more time, and then turned around to go back to the front room and see how he could go about taking a stab at fixing this.

Sam was nowhere to be found. The only other room was the bathroom, and he wasn’t in there either.

“Wilson?” Bucky asked, looking around again as though it would make Sam magically materialize in a place he’d already checked. He opened the front door. “ _Wilson?_ ” he called into the hallway. “ _Sam??_ ” He ran down the stairs, then back up, checking every landing in the apartment building. “ _SAM???_ ” Nothing. Bucky raced back to the apartment, half-hoping that Sam would be waiting back at the door for him, but no such luck. He re-entered and did find one small kernel of hope: Sam’s backpack was still in its place next to the couch. He’d have to come back for it at some point…right? Bucky pulled out his phone and tapped to the texting screen. No, wait, this required better attention. He went over to Contacts instead and tapped Sam’s number. Unsurprisingly, Sam did not pick up.

“Hi, Wilson…Sam…it’s me. Look, I wanted to come out and say I’m sorry but you’ve disappeared and now I don’t know where you are. You, uh, left your stuff here and yes I _promise on Howard Stark’s grave_ that I won’t do anything to it but I just…please call or text me back when you get this, I need to…Jesus Christ…”

In the meantime, Bucky set about cleaning up the mess he could take care of right away. Going over his left glove, he picked out a few stray shards with tweezers before sweeping up the pile of wet glass on the floor. His bedroom door would need some sanding and sealing and at least one hinge replaced. He let Banks chase the laser pointer around the other side of the front room for a few minutes. He paced. He waited.

“Sam, it’s me again. It’s been an hour and I still haven’t heard from you…you’re not out in the rain, are you? Look just… _please_ let me know you’ve got this, I know I deserve the silent treatment right now but I…wait…shit…I deserve the silent treatment…please just shoot me a text or whatever…”

He fiddled with his phone a bit, trying to distract himself with some random YouTube videos, but to little avail. He tapped over to Steve and Natasha’s numbers, fingers hovering for a few moments before storing it away as a last resort.

“Sam, god, listen…there was so much other stuff going on with me today, I didn’t get much sleep then I had a really rough morning and then I had a bad headache and then I got some _really_ bad news about Banks and the apartment and yes you crossed some lines but I didn’t need to blow up _that_ hard and it…it hasn’t been a good day. Please call me back. I don’t want to get Steve and Nat involved in our hissy fit, but if I need them to prove that you’re alive then I’ll do that.”

Choosing his wording very carefully so as not to arouse suspicion or alarm, he sent a text to Steve and Natasha. Let them think this was some garden-variety tiff, for now. He received a reply about ten minutes later: “He’s fine, he’s alive.”

_Holy shit, thank god._

“Sam, seriously it’s almost midnight and I don’t…listen, _I’m worried about you_ , okay? You’d had most of a six-pack when you left and it wasn’t right of me to yell at you for shit you said when you were getting drunk and…what if you run into a cop?? I’ve read about BLM and you’re alone and not sober, at night, what if something happens to you?? I’m just…I’m _sorry_ , okay? I’m so sorry for all the shit I’ve put you through, I’m sorry you lost your old life, I’m even sorry about the omelets! Just, please, Sam, I’m…I’m kinda begging you, if you hear this please… _please_ just…”

*knock knock knock*

Very slowly, Bucky turned his head towards the door and put his phone down, face caught somewhere between falling and lighting up. He stepped forward, looked through the lens, and turned the knob.

“You were ‘worried about me’?”

Bucky had a tricky time reading Sam’s face. The half-lip-curl and single-eyebrow-raise seemed at once accusatory and smug. Bucky pointed to his phone.

“Were you out there listening the whole time?”

“Ish. Was gonna knock earlier but I started to hear you when I got to the door so I figured I’d let you say your piece first.”

Bucky wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to that, but all that he found coming out was a resigned “touché.” He gestured for Sam to come back inside. The Falcon was noticeably not wet, which meant that he’d either managed somehow to avoid the storm entirely, or had spent some time out in it after all but had been back long enough that he was dry again.

“Points for social awareness, by the way. Didn’t quite take you as the type to evoke BLM.”

“Well, I’m learning.”

“Good.”

They sat back down on the couch, in tense silence at first but a tension that very gradually began to lessen. Bucky continued to mull over whether he should break the silence or let Sam speak first. Finally he figured the least he could open with was a proper: “Sam, I really am sorr…”

“Yeah, I know, I heard you the first time.”

“And…?”

“Well, some people say that when someone apologizes for doing you wrong, it’s better to respond with ‘apology accepted’ and not ‘it’s okay’. Because if you say ‘it’s okay’, then they’ll think it wasn’t that big a deal and might not feel so bad about doing you wrong the same way again later. But if you say ‘apology accepted’, it’s a nice concise way of saying ‘thank you for admitting that you fucked up and that you’re sorry. I forgive you for your wrongdoing, now let’s move on with our lives’. So with that said…” Sam finally turned his head and faced Bucky proper, “apology accepted.”

Bucky averted his gaze in shame for a brief moment before nodding slowly and saying, “Yeah, yeah that sounds right. I…thank you. It’s just…” He could sense Sam raising an eyebrow again, but still wanted to properly explain himself in person and not in a frantic voicemail message. “I could take all that abuse about me, but once you insulted my place, I dunno, it just hit the wrong nerve or something. But that’s no excuse for trying to throw you out like that.”

“Yeah, and maybe I went a bit too far. Man’s house is his castle ‘n all that.”

“Bucharest was a start, but compared to this place it was more of a safehouse. I _was_ making a new life there, but I guess there were just too many dangling threads for me to be tied down there for long.” Bucky wasn’t even a hundred percent sure what exactly he meant by that string analogy, but it made enough sense in the moment that he opted to just roll with it. _Finally had something that’s mine again…_ he continued in a thought trail, although he may’ve also whispered it out loud.

“Hmm,” Sam nodded thoughtfully. “Well, in that case, I’m sorry I drunkenly tried to tear down the hub of the new life you’ve made for yourself.”

“Apology accepted,” said Bucky. “And really that’s all you need to apologize for. I think I deserved everything else you threw at me.”

Sam sighed. “I’ve honestly given up on going ‘being the Winter Soldier wasn’t your fault’ every time you get like this, but…” he paused. “Yeah. That was someone else’s fault. But this…” he gestured between them and then vaguely around the apartment. “That water pipe was just an accident, wasn’t anyone’s _fault_.”

“Yeah, and you’ve given up more for worse,” said Bucky, looking back at Sam in earnest. “Seriously, what right do I have to complain about you crashing with me on a moment’s notice because of some wet floors, after you took Steve and Nat in when Hydra had me tearing up D.C.?” They sat in silence a little while longer. “…Do you still want your old life back, Sam?”

Sam mused for a moment, then exhaled. “I dunno, man. I’m not even sure how long it’s been since I had any kind of ‘regular life’. And the shit that went down that day wasn’t just about you. We had actual bad guys to take down. Duty called, I answered.” Bucky let the phrase “actual bad guys” simmer in his mind for a moment before Sam added, “but yeah…doesn’t mean I don’t think about it sometimes.”

“You deserve better than this, after all you’ve done.”

“Maybe I do, tin man, maybe I do.”

“You _do_ , though. I mean, you were right, who _is_ looking after you?”

Sam side-eyed him with a faint shrug. “You seem to come through some way or another, somehow.” He gave Bucky a loose bop on the arm.

Bucky wasn’t sure if the sensation of one’s heart swelling and sinking at the same time was one ever before experienced by man. On the one hand, Sam sounding somewhat sentimental towards him was a more pleasant sensation than he was expecting, but on the other hand, knowing he felt that way at all made the whole evening seem like extra failure points on Bucky’s part. _You let him down, Barnes. …But you made amends, and he accepted. We’ll take that for what it’s worth…and that’s probably a lot._

“Why the hell _were_ you so mad at your mail when you came back, anyway?”

Bucky sighed and sank his face into his flesh hand. “The building is trying to kick me out because of Banks.”

“Shit, man,” Sam breathed, sounding more exasperated than mad. “You know they can’t legally do that, right?”

“Oh, you should’ve seen what the landlords around here used to get away with anyway,” Bucky groaned, taking a glance out the window. “Brooklyn, Brooklyn, the more you change, the more you stay the same.”

“We’ll see about that. You’ve got a better leg to stand on here.”

“Let’s hope so.”

Banks trotted over and hopped up on the couch, sitting between the two men and kneading a little at Bucky’s leg before curling up against him. Sam held out a hand and let Banks sniff at him inquisitively.

“You’re alright, lil’ guy,” said Sam with a small smile.

“Oh shit, speaking of which,” Bucky suddenly remembered, perking his head up, “where the hell _were_ you?”

Sam jerked a thumb upwards. “Roof.”

“In that weather?”

“Wind died down, and an overhang to stand under.”

“It’s October.”

“It was like seventy degrees out today.”

“Oh, right.”

They sat in silence for a little while longer before Bucky took a look down at his phone to check the time.

“Look, how about this,” he said, turning to Sam. “As my extra, non-verbal apology for tonight, you can take the bed and I’ll crash on the couch.”

Sam considered for a moment. “Yeah, sounds good.” He stood up from the couch and stretched before leaning over to pick up his bag. “Wait, you didn’t leave anything weird on the sheets, did you?”

“I’ve done laundry since Steve was last here, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“…Right, okay.”

“And I think we can stop here and call it even on the prank war, anyway.”

“Fair enough,” Sam started towards the bedroom and then stopped a few feet away. He turned to face Bucky with a raised eyebrow. “…You sure about that?”

Bucky pursed his lips slightly and only made the briefest of eye contact. “Yeah…for now.”

“…For now.”

“And maybe for later.”

Sam huffed slightly as he nudged past the wounded but open door, and Bucky heard the click of the light switch followed by a great peel of laughter.

“OH my GOD that poster is beautiful man, holy _shit_ …!”

Bucky had his first real smile in hours. “Had I really never shown you that?”

“I think Steve and Nat told me about it, but no, this is my first in-person viewing. It’ll be a privilege to sleep under this…g’night.”

Bucky meant to reply in kind, but still caught up in the humor of the moment he found himself blurting out, “have fun!” He sat on the couch for a while longer, listening to Banks’ soothing purrs and idly scrolling through his phone, before stumbling on a clickbait article entitled “20 Mashups of Songs You Had No Idea Sounded This Good Together!” Bucky started reading out of mild curiosity in case some of the songs from Sam and Natasha’s playlist came up, sampling a few here and there.

And then he had a stroke of inspiration.

Bucky: [This might sound really random, but do you think you could help a guy get a blank CD at this time of night?]

Natasha: [Yes random, but yes can help get]

Natasha: [You and Sam planning an early 2000s road trip in the morning?]

Bucky: [Yes Sam, but no road trip.]

Bucky: [Let’s just say I want to give him a little present before he leaves tomorrow.]

Natasha: [Sounds like fun :)]

45 minutes later, there was a light tapping at the kitchen window. Recognizing the face looking in, Bucky went over to open it.

“Special delivery.”

“Nat, you do know my intercom works, right?” Bucky said, not sure if he meant it more as a playful jab or thinking “it’s not _that_ much of a covert op, you don’t need to sneak up through the fire escape” out loud.

“This was easier,” Natasha shrugged, handing him a thin jewel case with a CD-R inside. “Enjoy making your mixtape!”

“Oh, I will…” Bucky smirked to himself as the Black Widow silently slipped back down to street level. He returned to his laptop to see that an MP3 file had just finished exporting.

Time to get burning.

* * *

 

Bucky made them breakfast again the next morning (under Sam’s watchful eye, just to be safe) and Sam made a call to make sure that his place was indeed ready on schedule. They sat at the kitchen island talking sports over coffee for another hour before the Falcon decided it was time to fly.

“You get a B+ for effort,” Sam announced as he put his backpack on, “but you’ve got some issues to work out, tin man.”

Bucky curled the corner of his mouth. “Don’t I know it.”

“For real, though, listen,” said Sam, looking Bucky straight in the face and holding up a firm finger for emphasis, “I am _not_ going to be your therapist. But I’m also not gonna let them throw you out just for needing a little extra furry help.” Bucky gave a small but sincere nod and opened his mouth to thank Sam. “ _And._ I’m gonna give you this advice: please, for the love of god, do yourself and your brain and Steve—and everyone, honestly—a favor and go on some meds.”

“Yeah,” said Bucky, glancing aside for a moment before returning his gaze. “You’ll forgive me if I’m not too keen on mucking with my own brain chemistry. I’ve had enough of that done for me.”

“Well then, you’ll appreciate the opportunity to actually have a say in it this time,” said Sam, folding his arms.

Bucky gave a lengthy pause, averting his gaze again before concluding, “I’ll definitely take your suggestion into consideration.”

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes,’ then.”

“Speaking of ‘taking’…” Bucky leapt on the opportunity for a segue, “I’ve got something else for you.” He walked over to his laptop, picked up the CD and case from the night before, and handed it to Sam with a mild flourish.

“Oh?” said Sam, looking at the gift. A crudely-drawn picture of a bird in red Sharpie adorned the front of the disk, along with the title _Falcon Mix_. “Nice, what’s on it?”

“Eh, just some classics I threw together last night,” Bucky shrugged while sincerely doubting that Sam would take it that easily. A few moments of tense eye contact reminiscent of the sneeze omelet stand-off passed before Sam nodded, slowly and cautiously.

“Sssssssure,” he said, pocketing the disk and giving it a small pat. “CDs, though. Very modern-retro of you.”

“Would you prefer a cassette next time, or a first-generation iPod?”

“Nah, it’s good.” Sam started to turn towards the door. “Although if you do actually give me a mixtape _on tape_ next time, I will be genuinely impressed.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” Bucky opened the door.

“Good luck,” Sam chuckled, stepping out before turning to Bucky one more time and saying, more seriously this time, “and…good luck.”

“Thanks, Sam.”

Another pause, and then they shared a quick but firm single-armed bro-hug before Sam went on his way. “And yeah, I probably owe you for this, don’t I?” he called over his shoulder before heading down the stairs. Bucky smirked and closed the front door, leaning on it for a few moments before turning around and surveying the apartment—his space—again. Still. Silent. But _his_. He heaved a great sigh before quietly admitting to himself that the next few days were going to feel just a bit more boring.

“Hey Banks,” he said, patting the arm of the sofa, “wanna come sit and we’ll watch that _Monsters Inc_ movie?”

“Maow!”

* * *

 

Bucky: [You settled again?]

Sam: [Yup. Had to let the water run for a couple minutes, but we’re all set now.]

Bucky: [Good to know]

Bucky: [You checked out the Falcon Mix yet?]

Sam: [With some trepidation]

Sam: [Funny you should mention that]

Sam: [Alright let’s see]

Sam: [Hah, the 2001 theme. V funny.]

Bucky: [What’s its real name again?]

Sam: [It’s like Also Sprat Something German, anyw]

Sam: [nOO]

Sam: [NOOOO YOU DIDHITNO’T]

Bucky: [( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)]

Sam: [YOU FUCKGINS]

Bucky: [( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)]

Sam: [HOW DID DHT E WINTER SOLDIER EVEN LEARN AUDIO EIDTING SOFTWARE]

Bucky: [I looked]

Bucky: [it up]

Bucky: [on the internet]

Bucky’s phone started buzzing with an incoming call from Sam. He hit the Accept button with the widest grin he’d felt in a very long time as Sam’s blustery tirade shot out of the speaker, with the muffled beat of Never Gonna Give You Up pulsing away in the background.

“You know what?? YOU KNOW FUCKING WHAT??” Sam bellowed as Bucky flopped back on his bed, trying and failing to stifle his delighted snickering. “I am taking this as a PROMISE from you! That YOU are never gonna give me up!! That YOU are never gonna let me down!! That YOU are never gonna run around and desert me!!!”

“That was…not my plan at all…” Bucky half-wheezed, “but you know what? Sure, I can do that.”

“OKAY.” Sam hung up.

Sam: [Also if I get complaints from the neighbors for that, it is YOUR fault.]

Bucky: [k]

Sam: [and just to check]

Sam: [yup]

Sam: [you did]

Sam: [the whole CD is just rickrolling 19 more times isn’t it]

Bucky: [( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)]

Sam: [GOOD NIGHT.]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way, Bucky's prank track is An Actually Thing That I Actually Made. I'll link the crucial part here if I figure out a good place to put it.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Bucky Who](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9660833) by [TheRothwoman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRothwoman/pseuds/TheRothwoman)




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